You know what I really really appreciated about the movie? The "badass" characters are not bitter and lame, they have a personality. The two younger people in the crew, were acting their age which is refreshing to see. The main character wasn't just a punshing bag, without him, the crew would fail and they learn to appreciate him.
I watched this randomly was expecting the usual stuff that studios do with IPs like this. Was happily surprised with it, brought me back to a happier time in cinema. Is it spectacular and must see? No. But neither is 90% of the shite that's come out in the last 5 or 6 years
@@himynameis3664I agree this movie was fun with no agendas. Holga was a strong female fighter but she took hits and had to adjust her strategy to win. DnD had to go against John Wick which is a hard fight. But you are right movies for the past few years have been freshly dropped, hot and steamy dog doodoo on a hot summer day in the desert.
@@darickbrown9062 No agendas??? LOL are you serious? Why in EVERY GODDAMN movie the women is the badass, more intelligent and all the male characters are stupid and weak? I stop watch this DnD crap in the part the Michelle Rodriguez start kick evebody ass when Cris Pine was trying to cut his handcuff rope., like a IDIOT. This is the norm now?
One thing that DnD did that was absolutely special in my book was that it felt like an actual DnD campaign. The discussion why a certain character is even in the group, the overly complicated heist plan that goes south due to "bad rolls" and was ultimately pointless anyway, the DMNPC paladin that joins the group for one quest, essentially takes care of it all by himself, and then leaves for no reason other than "it would ruin the game if this character stayed with the group". Every interaction just felt like Pen and Paper at your desk with friends. Granted, that is something that a vast majority of the viewing audience has no frame of reference for, so this amazing detail goes right over their heads.
Less not mention that the big-bad driving force of the movie was not the villain, it was his underling. The story really felt like a fun adventure by seemingly unimportant characters, not some grand fantasy that most of Hollywood expects these films to be. Oh, and that start to the film, it really felt like Chris Pine's character going over the lore of his character before the game session began, LMAO.
And the movie was filled with game moments, from every player OTHER than the bard making their Knowledge roll to recognize a famous hero. You continually had the feeling that the players were coming up with wacky ideas and the GM was running with it, because it was fun. And the personal stakes as distinct from the high stakes was actually kind of important. You can't have comedy feel safe in a scene with planetary stakes. Blockbusters keep escalating the stakes so much that people can't relate to it. The first movie is about dominating the planet, the next is about destroying it, then you have to increase the stakes to half the life in the universe, and then you increase the stakes to multiverse incursions where the entire universe could end? Normal people CAN'T RELATE to that. But they can relate to a well-intentioned parent goofing up, trying so hard for their kid but that drives them away. They can relate to the barbarian who left their tribe to be with the man their loved, but that very loss hurts her relationship with the man she loved. People can relate to that. The world dominating plot is mostly incidental, and helps the PERSONAL conflicts be resolved.
For a D&D player the movie brought life to experience, mechanics, and world lore... merging fan service with plot. I argue that every movie compared to in this critique were successful due to years of building a fan base and less on CCP. The D&D movie is unique and nuanced and I hope to see more productions for this fan base in the future. It was clear that the producers and actors respected and enjoyed the property and base community. I also think it made an excellent heist movie if you understand the game context.
@@starlarobinson9520 Too bad the writers didn't respect the community enough to keep their mouths shut during the press tour. Their joke about emasculating men killed this movie. They need to go take another look at the demographics that play DnD and then maybe avoid insulting 80+% of them.
I know that DnD is praised for being the Guardians of the Galaxy of the modern landscape, but those people would also prolly agree that it's heartbreaking to see such a laid back film bomb. Because we won't see more of it no more
at first, I thought that too. But it is true that the movie did not do that well at the box office. Though I think the reason is the release date, maybe CCP actually exists. Who knows?
The problem with D&D is that its neither an established franchise nor does it do anything really different from your average blockbuster action movie. Even if it was good, it's not good enough to be profitable in the competitive world of modern movies
I like that the "idea" guy didn't all the sudden turn into some super secret god mode badass that won the fight single handedly. He was just the idea guy
The thing that makes no sense is bards are magic casters in D&d. For a movie that was generally lore accurate to the source material it felt out of place that all he could do is hit people with his lute. Outside of that, I agree.
@@stephenpardue2052 According Eddgins' official statblock his spell are all about charisma and speechcraft. So he was(?) casting all the time, it just wasn't visible.
@@matusfekete6503 unless you're an illusionist wizard or sorcerer, magically charming creatures is very much visible and charmed creatures realize they've been duped after the spell runs out. So no it doesnt work that way
@@stephenpardue2052 Paladin only used Divine Favour, because his blade was glowing? He then fought like he was maxed out in Dex. Bard literally never used a spell. Even when he distracted the guards it was an illusion cast from the sorcerer. Sorcerer only used his spells outside of combat except at the end. Very few times did he use them otherwise. Druid basically only shape shifted.
The problem isn’t that it failed as a movie. It’s that it cost too much for what it was. It looks like a fun mid-level action-adventure-comedy but with a blockbuster budget. People liked it because it was fun not because of the CGI.
I actually felt that the movie had an incredibly grand scale. I You can tell this was a huge production that used its budget to its absolute limit with the sets, the costumes, and vfx... unlike 300mil marvel movies where they just stand in front of a green screen
One thing not mentioned it's that it came out right after the ogl debacle which caused 50% of actual DND fans to unsubscribe and boycott DND. In the ttrpg world, Hasbro (company that owns DnD) slapped their entire customer base in the face and expected no consequences from it. Since January to release date people stopped talking positively about DnD.
@@pinkliongaming8769 it worked fine for M:TG, you can't really blame them for being greedy enough to try when M:TG players happily rolled over and took it
@@Ozhull I mean, there really isn't a M:TG competitor and the remaining "fan base" were reddit gold kind of people so they were more than glad to accept it.
2 things: - bad marketing - wizards of the coast pulling shenanigans a few weeks before launch that sucked out most of the community's good will. It was a fun movie. A great popcorn muncher of a time. It's sad to see this one bomb.
Wow, the creators intentionally undermined their straight White male lead hero, plus White people made up only a tiny minority of all the actors in this thoroughly White-medieval-European setting. It's almost as if we should resent movies that hate us and push the agenda of our g_n0cide, huh?
i think the charm of the movie is that it is literally a game of DnD. as the wizard sets of the bridge trap for example ofcourse someone has a portal gun. because in those type of games people just loot everything and don’t even take a closer look. so its relateable and funny to the people that know. admittedly this targed audience is very small especially when it comes to big screen cinema.
The amount of times in games I've run/played in where the players screwed up the puzzle and need to be given an OP item to get out of it is unreal. Especially since the players will abuse the hell out of that item for the rest of the game
The reason I loved it are... well, a lot of the reasons you described. A big rule of dnd parties is that nobody should have 'protagonist syndrome' You're a team, equals. It's not fun to be left out of the spotlight. Also, well... I'm a dnd player, and it just felt like any other dnd game (though shorter than most). It didn't need to be massive in scope or have 'new stuff', it just needed to capture that feeling that I get playing my favorite game. And it definitely did that for me.
This movie reminded me of the early 2010s comedies like Mirror Mirror and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Maybe they’re not totally amazing, but they are very sweet and fun and just well made overall. I wouldn’t say it’s must see, but I certainly don’t regret having seen it.
The reason this film worked narratively and as a crafted artwork was down to one thing: It understood the audience who were going there to see it because it said the words "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title. Not people who read the books or are fanatical about the lore, but the vastly greater number of people who turn to play those games week after week, and make stories with it. The attitude at every successful table is "sorry, you want to do what with WHAT?" and then the DM/GM just has to figure out how to make that work. That's the story they told from the beginning. The actual plot was largely a sidestory to the endless shitshow that is a group of murderhobos with different reasons for playing trying to survive an endless series of puzzles guided only by a rulebook, their collective imagination and some talking. The entire plot was a long series of McGuffins attached by loose plot devices and even looser plans to resolve challenges that the party, by and large, decided to seek out themselves. Even the discussions about the physics of the portal superweapon the DM accidentally gave them to solve their linear dungeon are straight out of a game. "A WORM!" The characters are characters as portrayed by the people who played them. The Party is the unit of DnD and in a good campaign, the story unfolds chaotically around them. The DM will never let you relax into boredom if they can avoid it, so every inch of chaos and randomness is milked for all it's worth, stories are brought to a close in haphazard fashions, details are forgotten left right and centre. Further, since every other character apart from them is acted by one person, they all come across as variations on the same theme - whatever mood the DM is in on that day. There's a few times the exasperation of the DM is written into the scene directly, and it sounds Marvellish, but it's not. Parties tend to explode any plans you have in about five minutes or less. It's not irony or auto-referential humour. It's genuinely just because even the absolute best DMs can be completely overwhelmed by the combined narrative creativity of five people who have decided that this particular line of thinking is absolutely far more entertaining than anything you had in mind. Further, each character and NPC in the campaign was there just to give the party a challenge to deal with or overcome. They even start in prison - that's one of the standard two openings for a new group. The insanity that follows - the hastily named NPC that turned up from a previous campaign, the new player who they need to find who is super socially awkward and doesn't really know what they want to do other than turn into an owlbear, even the ridiculously over the top ancient mage enemy who is scheming around off screen - all of it is direct from a standard campaign. The paladin who just walks off mid conversation - that entire exchange is directly out of "can we stop him or trap him somehow?" "No, he's just walking away." "Where?" "Away." "What direction?" "Away from you." "What if we try and trap him in a bag of holding?" "He's already too far away to do that, walking along the shoreline." "The shoreline goes against a big cliff right?" ...shit. "He climbs over the rocks and is gone now." So if it's so good, why didn't it make that much money? Well... Because if you're unfamiliar with that narrative structure and you don't understand why characters are acting like they are, they do just look like Marvel characters. That's not because they are - they aren't, they're far more interesting to write than Marvel characters because almost everyone at a DnD table is a much more interesting person from anything from Marvel. It's because the awkward humour and in-jokes and self referential circular plot lines are what happens when five or six slightly socially awkward people get together to tell stories. Without that framework, you're going to struggle to understand what's going on. Sure it's fun and charming and funny and well made and even quite pretty, but it's not Marvel pretty and the characters are new and you have no investment in it. There's nothing spectacular about what's going on, played by characters that are, at their core, quite generic albeit extremely well acted and played. Having played a game gives you a subtext which immediately lets you in on the fact that the entire film is one massive in-joke. In-jokes don't tend to make money unless there are lots of people who get them.
I agree with you thruout the whole comment except...the Marvel part,MCU was also used to be like this,they were charming,enjoyable and actually good...every character had much more difference to be in their separate genre,and their team work resembled much more from ttrpg games,they were honestly...truely diverse but not only on the face value...
8 месяцев назад+1
Yeah, you can easily imagine a lot of it as a game. Like the collapsing bridge scene. DM: * relays the complex trap through his DMPC * Simon: * activates the trap * "Oops" DM (internally): "Shitfuckdammit I didn't prepare any other way across, and we're only one hour into this session, I can't just end it here so I could make them an alternate path... Ah, got it!" DM (out loud): "Simon, roll me an Arcana check." Simon: "Why?" DM: "Just do it please." Simon: "Alright." * rolls * "I got a 19." DM: "You notice a strange staff hanging out from Holga's bag. You never gave it a second thought, but now in this light you recognize it as a 'hither-tither staff'. It works basically like a portal gun from Portal." Simon: "Cool!"
I think that you missed a major talking point and that’s how immediately preceding the release of the movie WOTC sabotaged themselves by pissing off most of their own fan base. I disagree with your entire premise for why the movie failed. All the elements you are describing are what made it a great D&D movie. They nailed it. Not the best fantasy movie. But the best D&D movie for sure. I loved it
@Luz maria people are really underestimating how angry the hard-core fans are. The people that spend thousands of dollars a year on DnD merch are in just sit back and watch it burn mode.
If we learned one thing from hollywood it is that quality doesn't translate to box office gains. It's definitely better than all the garbage Disney disgorged the last ten years taken together. Some of his points may be legit, but he overlooked many of D&D's creative ideas.
D&D was an amazing movie that did everything right, except choosing a release date. I had a wonderful time watching it. It adapts D&D experience with perfect details.
I definitely liked that it captured the tabletop experience pretty well, but generally speaking I thought it was pretty mid. I didn't really care about any of the characters, other than maybe the paladin, and the plot seemed disjointed and sluggish. I actually think making the movie have a lot of the elements of a TTRPG might have hurt more than it helped, since only TTRPG players are going to appreciate those aspects of the plot.
This movie failed because they told everyone they were going to emasculate the male characters so most people avoided it. All the interracial couples and non-whites in what is supposed to be a European setting also caused people to avoid it.
Sure, it adapts the D&D experience quite well, until you get a player who wants to roll a Druid with unlimited uses of wild shape, and then realizes that D&D Druids can't actually turn into owlbears. :D
That's the problem, it tried to appeal to DnD fans first before being a movie. I'm not a DnD fan/player, but I can totally see the love the movie gives to DnD. From, the costume, character designs, the brief references to DnD creatures, heck, I think there were people who LARP(?) during the (spoiler(?))maze segment (spoiler) but as a movie? The characters jump from scene to scene rarher than transition naturally, it relies heavily on the mcguffin, and the story beats and emotional pay off were just lacking. The movie has an amazing setting with a subpar story/story that wasn't translated very well into the cinemas.
@@nattteo As a TTRPG player, i didn't appreciate the memberberries. I didn't want to see a group faff about for an hour and a half before getting to the actual story. Personally, i had an issue rooting for any of the characters. None of them stood out to me where I thought "i really want to achieve their goal." Movie Neverwinter never felt like Neverwinter to me; and I've been to Neverwinter in enough officially licensed material (whether book or game) to see that the city there was just a generic fantasy city. All of the sets (and locales) felt like check boxes that the movie had to go to because it's what a test group told them people wanted to see. The enemies never felt like enemies. They had barely interaction with the main cast, to where the Thay Sorcereress' only lines to the main cast outside of the very end was screeching about the wildshape druid. It never felt like it was about people that were really in the forgotten realms going on an adventure. It felt like a two hour commercial for "pop culture DnD" (which is a thing that i've come to be annoyed by in general) and they expected us to go buy the Keys to the Golden Vault book after getting out of the theatre.
That right there is the reason why it failed. It has to make sense in the movie itself not just the DnD world. With a 200 million budged you can’t only appeal to a small niche audience and expect your movie to not fail
@@texanplayer7651 You don't make a character purely based on class, you can make a bard with all kinds of dynamics. Unless you are some boring grognard tryharding with builds and looking only at numbers. And even if you had to play the character the way the class is made, it would be wrong - bard has subclasses that completly shove aside the idea about supporting and inspiring.
I kinda liked Ed’s character. It matched how a lot of people in manager / supervisor roles feel. You’re just kinda putting things tg as you go, keeping things moving, and even when you’re unsure if a plan will work - you execute. You try not to let your team, the truly skilled, know you’re unsure.
I think the charm of this movie is imagining how these scenarios would play out at the table in your buddy's house, with you and your friends clutching character sheets trying to bullshit yourselves out of a tricky situation. All of the contrived things feel real because as a DM you sometimes have to improvise. All of the "idiot plot" moments where the characters are just stupid (like when the puzzle bridge gets destroyed) reminds me of the dumb things my friends have done at the D&D table. It makes the movie feel really genuine as an adaptation of a TTRPG experience WITHOUT having to force a cliche where the camera pans back to a bunch of nerds in a basement talking about what just happened in the movie.
I was so surprised to see how good this movie was, wildly entertaining throughout and with some very creative and exciting sequences, the comedy works, the characters work and the overall story also is compelling and original enough. Just the kind of movie we don't get anymore
I don't know mate, it was an okay movie, the jokes didn't land for me at all, but some sequences were nice, but never in a million years would I go to a theater to watch it, especially at a time when a movie like John Wick 4 is also available.
@@kabeltelevizio Indeed. If we compare the movie with other releases it definetly is up there in terms of quality, since its harder and harder to find a decent movie nowdays. ...however, that alone doesn't make the film great on its own. We are getting to the point where there is so much trash floating around that anything decent is seen as a masterpiece. It is a fun movie, but I don't see it as anything crazy to lose your head over.
Another factor is that the movie was under a minor boycott by the very community it was supposed to appeal to. Which is a minor saga in itself, but I would wager it influenced quite a few people to not go to watch it in theaters and instead pirate it.
The only time even heard about this movie was reactions to the interview when they bragged about emasculating the men. It's really sad that they made a good movie in spite of that, but it was a massive marketing failure. I've seen a few movies like that where the director and/or cast do a press tour and shout how proud they are about the progressive themes in the movie, only to discover they lied and the movie was fine, or they grossly overstated it. It's like they think the majority of the world are far left activists and they're trying to bait them into seeing the movie. It's baffling.
I'm hoping this movie finds a second life on video and streaming, because it's a lot of fun, and I definitely want a sequel. Other films have had a sequel greenlit because the video release was so popular. I'm hoping the same happens for this one.
Me too 🥺 I'm not even a fan or familiar with D&D, but our family went to go see it & we LOVED the film! It was such a feelgood, fun time at the theater, and I would really love to revisit the world again!
The creators intentionally undermined their straight White male lead hero, plus White people made up only a tiny minority of all the actors in this thoroughly White-medieval-European setting. It's almost as if we should resent movies that hate us and push the agenda of our g_n0cide, huh?
Edgar is charismatic. He is the bard. He brings the team together. He convinces them to keep going when they are thinking of giving up. This movie was great
It was genuinely the best film I've seen in years, in terms of going to the cinema and having a really good time, and appreciating how well constructed the whole thing was. Everything was coherent. Everything was signposted. All the jokes were properly set up. And everyone I've spoken to basically says the same thing; it was an uplifting and fun experience, that was actually more clever than it had any right to be (the portal antics for example - the fact that the party's plan is thwarted because the surface upon which one of the portals is attached falls onto the floor, and due to basic physics, there's nothing to be "pushed" against so they can't get through? That's S-tier nerding). I'm a very harsh critic, who will absolutely take a massive dump on most modern productions for their many sins and failures... but this? This was a wholesome, entertaining, well crafted film that I'll be buying the moment it comes out on DVD/Bluray. It suffered, evidently, due to marketing, release schedule, and the controversies surrounding the actual franchise.
@@reffa2858 Yeah, like the potato thing; establishing that the Barbarian likes potatoes sets up the final potato-fling at the villain near the end. Meanwhile, did you notice that when Simon is trying to attune to the helmet, and he first goes into that magic/dream world, he identifies what he thinks is his "great grandfather", and the great grandfather laughs, but doesn't say that's who he is. It's because it was never the great grandfather; it was always Simon. Simon just assumed that his biggest opponent would be his own heritage, instead of himself.
@@NicholasBrakespear those were great ones you pointed out. I picked up on the finger flame. Not only was it used to distract the crowd to steal their money, but it was used when they were cornered by the dragon to combust his gas breath and escape. When the king talks about how the red mage can explain the vaults intricacies in excellent detail to the two leaders, she barely says anything then stands still in awkward silence for a moment. But she did that because there is a literal fly on the wall as the druid trying to spy to learn more about the vault to break in it. The mage say as little as possible because she knows someone/something is listening. And of course it gives chase to the epic changeling chase scene. I love this movie. I may watch it again just to see if there is more I missed.
I think a big problem was how Mario was presented. Theatres want to always have a kid movie so they keep them running for a long time but every time I looked at theatres Mario was given so many theatres that it pushed out tons of other movies. Also it is possible some people were boycotting it because of what the company that owns DnD had been doing it really pissed off fans regardless of how good the movie is.
We saw both the Mario Movie & this one, and my god... Mario was TERRIBLE. 🙄 This movie was sooo much more enjoyable & funny. Mario felt like it was made for 4yr Olds, despite that youngest generation not even being near as nostalgic for the brand. I was bored to tears watching that stupid movie, and couldn't believe it made as much money as it did! Nostalgia is a helluva drug. I'd much prefer D&D get a sequel film, but we all know Mario will get one instead, and poor D&D will be forgotten about, despite it being the superior film.
As a dnd enthusiasts and dungeon master the movie was fairly accurate on the dnd lore, I think part why more people didn't go watch it the dnd community seem to protest against Hasbro for trying to get an OGL passed making it to where they would've own the rights to all the content of all DND creators which I feel where they lost because the community would've definitely saw multiple times just to support so we could get future movies they could've been more amazing and sad we might not now
Could be, but I think the dnd community would not have made a big difference. I think the problem was that the general public does not engange with dnd and so they think "meh, I don't now the story of dnd" so they don't go see it. I, for example had to explain to my friends that dnd is more like a framework rather than a storyline, so they would go watch it with me.
That is a really blurry and kind of semi accurate description of what happened. Wizards of the coast went to war against basically all d&d players, provoking a more intense backlash than Bud Lite. And they deserve it all. Even the original lawyers thar drew up the OGL joined the lawsuit against them. When all your own lawyers really against you, you done mess up.
You've got a really good point about the characters not stepping beyond the boundaries of their specialties. The barbarians in this movie & Vox Machina both had their strongest & most heartfelt moments when they were shown to be vulnerable and caring despite their propensity to f*ck everyone up all the time. Other characters in the movie weren't really given that shot
I get it as something done on purpose, with the idea to present the stereotyped adventurer character. Also interesting how secondary characters are handled, as it mimics how NPCs behave in average D&D games.
Looks good on paper, but how exactly would that help? All the characters already had great character arcs and challenges - the mage wasn't able to cast spells properly, the druid did not trust the group and bards are underdogs just by definition. The palladin was a Mary Sue, but that is a DnD inside joke and my favourite part of the movie honestly. Does the movie really need a sequence where the bard is locked in a closed space and needs to overpower a swordsman? Would be most boring scene in it IMO. Might be done in a cool way, but doesn't really make the story better.
Bards are underdogs by definition? Bards are one of the most powerful classes in D&D. A well played bard can be the glue that holds the group together. Sure, they won't be the one that deals the most damage or gets the most kills, but a good bard is the soul of the party and can and will be the MVP. And it's simply because of one thing: bards are a full support class that enables the rest of the party to be at their best and can often save everyone from certain death. As a DM I'd be more afraid of an optimized bard than an optimized paladin or wizard.
11:21 fun fact, halflings were actually called hobbits in the beggining and are essentially hobbits, but it seems hobbits were JRR Tolkien intellectual property because he coined the term first, so now in any fantasy you have to call hobbits halflings
The problem with the movie IMO, at least in the regard on how many people went to see it, it's that there's a lot of stuff that requires you to know a little about the world, watching people explain the details is absolutely insane, every scene is full of detail
Having seen your brilliant (as usual) points, I couldn't help but notice you forgot to mention one outside factor which tipped the scales on the profitability of Dungeons & Dragons-- the boycott. After WotC pulled some dodgy nonsense with their new Open Gaming License, it caused such a storm of controversy that everyone who played the game was pulled in, and many people discussed boycotting this movie as retribution.
They also invited several big wigs within the third party content creator community to a summit, where things got very heated. It's absolutely not just three guys and reddit.
Yeah, I think the thing most telling about its release date screwing it over was that it actually had a decent opening weekend. It's just that once Mario came out the next week, it pretty much swallowed its entire audience in one felled swoop.
Yup. And with the economy being really tough on most actual human beings this year, people aren’t going to go see a second movie in the same week or same month, especially when one of those other movies is something they know will be an easy good time for their kids to experience, with Mario. This reminds me of that time Disney released Solo right before the biggest Avengers movie of all time. When will any of these big film companies realize that sneaking in one week BEFORE a huge anticipated movie comes out isn’t going to help ticket sales one bit? If anything, bump it to a week or two AFTER a huge release, while audiences are pumped up from a good experience and might want to double down the next weekend.
@@itsd0nk 2018's Solo (May 25) didn't release a week before Infinity War (April 27). It did release a week after Deadpool 2 (May 18), though, and three weeks before the next big blockbuster, Incredibles 2 (June 15).
That's really taking a lot of liberties I think. The audience that would have seen this movie and the audience that would have seen Mario are mostly 2 different audiences (though there is some overlap). Not to mention, seeing one movie doesn't exclude someone from seeing the other. If someone wants to see a movie they will, and people just didn't want to see this one.
I'm affraid that a lot of the character properties get lost on non D&D player viewer is how the party also happens to represent the usual player archetypes. Barbarian roll player that just enjoys the carnage. The bard being the drama kid that just wants to generate the story, the druid wall-flower that just stays in the background enjoying being around etc. Also the story gets another dimension if you view it as a desperate DM trying to keep it all together SOMEHOW (because the players derailed the plot as soon as they cooked the hare-brained escape scheme) and still keep the action moving.
I just watched this last night and there is another factor as to why the numbers were so low... Hasbro. They own D&D and did the brand dirty and have been losing fans of many brands due to their poor decisions that do not benefit fans. My D&D group was dead set to see this movie, and we were going to see it as a group. Then Hasbro did some shady things with the D&D app, as well as sent the Pinkertons to a guy's house for acquiring Magic cards before their release date, and charging away too much for crappy action figures. As a group, we decided not to go see this movie as a means to not give Hasbro more of our hard earned money. Also, whilst Hasbro can screw over figure collectors but still have customers, the D&D community banded together strong and just about boycotted them and currently looking to other brands for their rpg sessions. So, whilst I thought the movie was entertaining and well made, we weren't jumping to pay movie ticket prices because that sends Hasbro the wrong message. Not saying this is a sole factor, but I am sure it had an impact.
@@DrMattPhillips this movie had a budget of 150 million and made 200million. Not only it didn't break even but it also lost hundrends of millions of dollars for the studio. It is a bomb.
@@RespectTheSourceMaterial I didn't say it was a smash hit, I said it did well-considering expectations within the studio for this film, which were slim to none. The fact that Paramount is developing a spin-off series, according to reports, implies that their goal and effort are more long-term in building a brand/cinematic universe, rather than in relation to this specific film being a break-out hit. So in reference to people within the company saying the film surpassed their expectations, the narrative around the studio, considering it a bomb, although might be true among some if you know things I don't (I'm not at the company, so I can only go by the press), but if a bomb means a film entry being a financial net-negative on the studio, the studios reaction doesn't seem to implicate such, hence my original comment.
@@michellefernandez3155 I don't think you know how box office works lmao. The budget of movies is always displayed WITHOUT the marketing costs and without the amount theaters take. For a 150 million dollar film to break even it needs to make 300 million, and for it to make profit it needs way more than that. That's why you were hearing news outlets saying the new avatar movie needs to make a billion dollars to break even, because it had a budget of 350-400million so when you add the marketing costs and the theater cuts it all adds up. Don't be condescending about things you don't know my man.
Another thing that also happened is that Wizards of the Coast blew up their own IP 6 weeks before the release date. They decided to claim all fan released content as their own by updating an irrevocable document called the OGL (Open Gaming License) and quite a few gamers I know boycotted this out of sheer principle.
I think this will do well in the after-market, be it on DVD or release. It has the sort of energy of a movie people happily put on when you want to watch something without thinking too much.
I think your probably right. I mean the first 3 movies all have cult followings and it seems like the general consensus is that this one was MUCH better (I didn't want to see it in theaters because of the WOTC licensing bull)
it's saddening to see this fail, but i feel like this is one of those good movies to watch/stream at home just to savour the goodness. it's actually one of the best recent fantasy film i've seen bc the characters actually DO have character in them, and the story isn't all focus on the special effects or the quest. and i also like how they didn't humanize the villains to make everything complicated. it's very easy to follow but not boring. tho, like i said, it may just be a bit too long to enjoy in a cinema, and maybe most ppl judged it as another mediocre fantasy story based on trailers or the first adaptation decades ago. but really, this is one good film you wouldn't mind watching again on movie nights if you just give it a chance. hoping something can make it go viral on social media.
I've always wanted a dungeons & dragons film based on the old 80s cartoon. Imagine the premise, a bunch of kids go on a fairground ride & gets transported to this netherworld where they meet dungeon master (Anthony Hopkins) he adorns them with their magical gifts, they must battle venjor & try to find a way home. If done right, could even turn into a trilogy of films.
This movie is by no means a 500 million-dollar box office success. While it's fun and entertaining, it made 200 million dollars, which should be the expected revenue from the start. The problem lies in the excessive cost of producing the movie. It shouldn't have been so expensive!
That is the problem no, if it was not that expensive it would probably don't as good as it is, we have no way to know what they would cut and how they would change the movie to fit the new smaller budget.
This movie was never expected to make money. It was made to be a big in your face commercial for DnD books, like the heist adventure book "The Keys to the Golden Vault."
IMO the biggest problem this movie had was something outside of its control: The Marketing. For those that dont know, one of the first advertisements done for the movie was how they were going to emmasculate the male characters. This was followed by a series of similar news, like how the female fighter was going to show her Strong Female Character energy by showing her hairy arm pits, and due to the actual landscape of entertainment, im convinced that this scared off a majority of the audience more than being stuck between two highly awaitted movies.
The marketing definitely didn't help. It was a very fun film, it captured the dynamics of a tabletop session. I'm hoping it ends up developing a cult following.
yes, this is a HUGE recurring problem that hollywood is really only now beginning to tackle. They are very far left and most people involved in movies are very far left. The problem is 90% of people are NOT far left. So them saying this kind of stuff turns off way too many people. They live in an echo chamber and have not even realized that what they say is turning people off. I think they are slowly starting to realize this, but they have a lot of denial.
Weird how all movies that market themselves like that end up failing, huh. It's almost as if people just want entertaining movies and the advertisement should be about how entertaining the movie is.
Which is unfortunate because the only way Edgin "fails" at being masculine is he isn't a badass fighter and considering his role as a bard that makes perfect sense (also you dont have to be conan the barbarian to be masculine) and Holga does literally none of the stereotypical "strong independent female character" stuff aside from being physically strong which again makes sense because of her role. Im honestly surprised they said stuff like that considering it turned out to not even be true AND it likely turned a lot of people off of the movie
1:12 Is my math off? Movie cost 150 mil. It made 200 mil in the box office (so, not including millions after box office). So, they made a profit of 33% THEN it moved out of the box office and made more money. He said it lost a small fortune. What am I missing?
*pushes glasses up* I'm actually that "wizard" is a wild Magic Sorcerer. That shapeshifter is druid, but they do refer to her as a SS. that rogue is a bard, not a rogue. no the owlbear going straight up hulk smash on the Red Wizard, that was the "did you see that?! Did you see that !" Moment, plus the whole scene before all of that where they were all fighting the Red Wizard at the same time. I get your points but most of the time was clawing at my skin going "But that is DnD!" The greatest thing about his movie is it shows not just the world of Faerun, it shows you how Dungeons and Dragons is played. And you don't need to understand one concept of D&D, because all you need to know is explained in the film, is concise bites, no long drawn out info dumps. Dungeons and Dragons is an adventure, that has heart. It can pull at your heart strings one session, and in the next your about to puke from laughing so hard. It shouldn't be that hard to make her see the truth. Have you actually talked with kids? lmao. You can blow their mind with a coin/card trick, and they turn around still be in disbelief that it was just sleight of hand. Teenagers? they make up their minds and that is that for the most part. It won't be till years later, that they realize what their folks were talking about. I mean we have all probably been there once or twice in our lives. As teens you think you got it figured out. your parents just don't get it, and then later on in life, especially if you have your own kids it hits like a smack in the face that your folks were right about something. But I do get your point at the end, it almost sounds like you wanted them to come out with a Avenger's End game film, that has not earned that. After all DC tried to do that with the Justice League, and though the IP and star power might of brought them some money, it was wholly panned in scores, and reviews because it was not earned.
Personally my friends and I all thought it looked really good, but everytime we discussed it, the conversation ended with "Can't wait to catch it on whatever streamer it ends up on" going to see it in theaters never even entered our minds
I mean, as someone who almost never goes to theaters because of how expensive they keep getting, the only way I'd've gone to see John Wick 4 in theaters is if I had a free ticket
Hopefully it gets great performance on streaming enough to be noticed by execs. Either that or if it does really well with physical media sales, but that’s not extremely likely these days, especially not with the large percentage of DnD fans being terminally online and just streaming and pirating it.
Yeah with the price of movies nowadays I'm glad I didn't pay for it tbh I'm having to watch it in more the one sitting if that makes sense cause I wasn't really engaged like with other fantasies ,,, but it's alright , probably better then the old one ? Or idk I cried when snails died when I was a kid LOL And the hero felt like more of a hero then Chris pines character but his character was funny nonetheless , bard giving hype to his comrades I get it I guess lololol
A lot of the gripes listed are explainable if you consider this: the movie is a filmed version of an actual game of DnD, with all of the foibles of keeping multiple players engaged, and the unexpected dice rolls. If you take that into account it is extremely fun and funny to think about the players playing the game we are watching.
They conveyed this very, very well. I think it was intended to add another layer of enjoyment for people who have played tabletop RPGs before, while still being a fun movie for people who haven't. There will also be people who haven't played RPGs before, but who will in future,and they will then retroactively see the references in the movie :D
Totally agree. Though, it works better as those reenactment of campaign stories than a movie by itself. It's fine, but it kinda shows it didn't adapted too well as a movie.
As someone who saw this movie in theaters and had a good time, I have a strong feeling that less than 6 people saw the maze scene and thought of Wrath of the Titans. I think less than 6 people have ever thought about Wrath of the Titans
It's sad to see this movie underperform for the same reasons it feels so much like a real D&D campaign you would actually play with your friends. It feels like a concious choice from the creators to keep everything laid back because it captures the spirit of the game. If they went for a style that fit the state of the industry more it would probably lack the fun vibe that it is praised for now.
I really enjoyed this movie. I get what Filmento is saying about it not having a bunch of wild sequences and not being a thrill ride, but, for me, that was part of its charm. I thought it had heart, was funny, and had an appropriate amount of action. I liked all the characters, and I found myself rooting for them. In fact, compared to the average 'popcorn' movie these days, I was significantly more invested in this film's characters and story. So, yeah, I liked it quite a bit. Now, as for Filmento's question... did I see it in the theater? ...No. I didn't. _But_ I rarely go to the theater anyway, so I don't think that means much.
I haven’t enjoyed a movie like I did with this in quite some time, it really captured that late 90s-early 2000’s adventure popcorn flick, which also had heart and stakes that were relatable and not “the universe is gonna end”
I loved this movie! I had no idea it was a flop! It was brilliantly funny and well cast. I also liked that they didn't make the main character and holga become romantically involved because i liked their friend dynamic and felt it would be ruined by bs romance that they usually toss in these kinds of movies.
I think the two main reason why it flopped was due to the release date as well as one of the directors stating that they love emasculating men. When I heard that, it completely turned me off as that statement just brought so many modern movies into mind that basically makes the man a blubbing idiot and the woman is the one who solves everything and is the usial "strong female character". However, I did end up watching it when it came out for home viewing do to a recommendation from a gaming RUclipsr who is also into DND and said that if you are a fan, you shall love the movie and I greatly enjoyed it.
@@Ironica82 Same, really. The first D&D movie was terrible, and the trailers didn't do much to make this look better. I had other stuff to watch when this came out. And the emasculating men comment. Dear lord, I hope the person who made that comment got a dressing down from whoever it is they need to answer to because I cannot see how uttering that could have any possible upsides. Wound up eventually seeing, and loving it, in a second run theatre after I saw a nerdy youtuber I follow enthusing about the movie. But without both of those, I would have happily skipped this one.
@@Ironica82i think another reason is the audience. i knew enough dnd to understand what they were going for, like how the success was left to luck, but there isnt a big enough audience that will watch in theatres. the whole point of the video talks abt how this movie had no chance of making a profit because it doesn't pull generic audience. mb before when tickets were cheap ppl wouldve watched it as an activity but now going to the theatres is only rlly left for big films like barbie or oppenheimer
@@Ironica82Really? I never once got the sense that either of the two main male characters were ever "emasculated". Jokes were made at their expense at times, but that's not the same thing.
I think this movie had bad marketing. Because the makers were bragging about how they like to emasculate males, it turned fantasy fans off, including me, were expecting another Rings of Power, Blood Origin or Willow. I eventually went to see the movie after seeing reviews and I loved it. It was nothing like the terrible shows I mentioned above. But I can see other people wouldn't even give it the chance it deserves.
I haven't seen the movie yet but did they actually make male characters weak and empower female characters? I've seen the "female warrior" in the trailer and I feel kinda iffy for the movie.
@@hoangkienvu7572 No I'd say they handled power fairly equally - None of them are really 'weak' or too OP, they just handle fights in different ways that feels natural for their personalities. The most skilled fighter of them are the Paladin guy, and then Holga (the female warrior as you put it) comes close second.
@@hoangkienvu7572 late reply but if what i would like to say. feminism done right. they didnt de-masuclate the men and made thing look bad to promp up woman. The main villian is a powerful female, your man ass kickers in the party are both females. the males are still competent and have a place in the party they just don't do hand to hand fighting like the woman.
Small-stakes _can_ and has worked. They're what used to set the _Ant-Man_ movies apart from the rest of the MCU, with Scott Lang just being a guy who wanted to be a good dad for his daughter, even after he messed up. I haven't seen it, but _Ant-Man 3_ takes this small-stakes guy, and pits him against _Avengers_ - level stakes, while also robbing him of chances to really do anything that matters, because the real acts had to be done by the women of the team. The writers completely forgot where and how Scott works best as a character, but the biggest problem with the film seems to be encapsulated in the latest version of his daughter basically going "yeah, you saved half of all of existence, but what good have you done lately?" It's not endearing. Small stakes work well if you can make them matter to the audience. Previous _Ant-Man_ entries did that by making us care about the family. So what's the reason for the audience to care about what's at stake in _Honour Among Thieves_ ? What makes it a compelling watch?
This movie is not a story about a group of adventurers, it is reenactment of a bunch of friends' D&D campaign. It is not a movie for everyone, but for someone who have been playing D&D for over a decade I enjoy the attention to details and easter eggs in this movie over those in Mario. To me, John Wick 4 can be summarize as "see Keanu Reeves shot someone for a fourth time", didn't really have that draw for me.
The magic cuffs were used on the heroes earlier in the film during the maze sequence so it didnt come out of nowhere Counterspell was mentioned in the backstory sequence but the sorcerer said that he wasnt strong enough to counter the time stop spell then
The magic cuffs were used on the heroes, but the daughter suddenly being in the middle of the fight to slap cuffs on her (that she herself didn't have) was bullshit; and the impromptu decision by every character to pretend that the time-stop spell went off was stupid (and the daughter taking advantage of that impromptu performance was even worse.) The scene was bad writing all around, even if the mcguffins and such were introduced earlier in the movie, their usage was poorly written.
@@frostmagemariithey stated immediately after that they planned to pretend to be time stopped, yes it's a bit of a retcon but I don't think it's completely out of left field for them to have given her the cuffs considering they knew who they were up against
@@frostmagemariiit wasn't an impromptu decision, they made a plan off-screen. Everything used was set up earlier in the movie. Edgan literally tells her that it was their plan the whole time
@@frostmagemarii I feel like you didn't actually watch the movie. They gave the daughter the cuff and had her use her invisibility necklace, and the time stop was counterspelled. They then literally explained their plan to the villain's face before killing her.
@@Usernamesdontmatter1 Ik they made shitty choices (and if possible I want them to stub their toe everytime they walk past a table) But what I feel most sad about is the people who worked on the film, especially the writers.
It's always funny watching this channel's reviews and reading the comments: "OMG, cinema is dead, people are idiots, this movie is amazing" when the video presents very consistent reasons why these movies failed
Shame it didn't do well I totally loved this movie. It was flawed with the usual trappings but I found it so much fun. Chris Pine is a master of this kind of role. The entire cast was great and the practical effects won me over as well. Low-key made me wish I knew more about DnD to get more of the in-jokes and references.
I imagine now that because of Baldur's gate 3 introduced allot more new fans to the world of the forgotten realms and D&D in general, another movie would make allot more money. Seeing this movie while recognizing all the references, powers and even items displayed in this movie, elevates it's entertainment value greatly. If Hollywood rolls another time on a new D&D movie, it'll do so with advantage.
The biggest thing this movie had going against it is the IP itself. I think for most it felt unapproachable unless you were already familiar with Dungeons & Dragons. The fact that it had an extended title only added to this, as it felt like maybe this was a sequel to a franchise you missed the first movie of. Turns out it was a great movie even if not familiar with in-depth IP but not a lot of people were willing to give it the same chance.
It gut wrenches me to see that there is a above 90% approval of this movie agreed upon by both Critics and the Audience knowing a contributing part of its issue of not doing well financially was Hasbro and Wotc knee capping it it as it came through the theaters doors with the stunts carp they tried to pull. I seriously hope though that they still make more DnD Movies with the love and charm this one had. It was a thrill to watch this feeling like it was the imagination inside the players head what they were seeing on their table top or what the DM was describing. It felt like a live action representation of a fanatic one shot.
Wow wow more than any RIGHT NOW maybe and only in movies. Plenty of movies were 10 times more ambitious as game adaptation (Final fantasy for instance who litteraly ruined Square which had to fuse with Enix) Careful with the superlatives (Americans do it all the time)
@@Toto-95 Be careful with the generalizations if you're gonna warn someone else about being careful with superlatives. I'm guessing the reason you mostly hear Americans do it is because it's mostly Americans you talk to.
This movie was honestly great, genuinely funny and refreshing, I haven't laughed while watching a movie in such a long time, its just a really good laid back movie and its sad knowing that theres a chance it wont get a sequel or we wont see these great characters again
While I understand you talking about how there are no consequences, but that is kind of what makes it a D&D movie. You can almost see it as the DM giving them more and more ways to win when they keep messing up.
It's a real shame this movie flopped it was such a fun film and I would have loved to see this get a sequel. It had truly funny characters, a bunch of fun and creative action, and a bunch of really likable main characters. Not a once in a generation film but still really good all the same.
It was too much of a film for "those guys". It's really an DnD session on screen, not movie in itself. But it was a damn good and fun filler DnD session.
@@Theeight8bI dunno, I brought some of my non-DND friends out to watch it, and they quite liked the movie. Obviously, if you get the references you'll enjoy it more, but I don't think the issue was that things were too in-jokey. Rather, it seems like the marketing was pretty bad.
@@snkybrki You know, you right. I watched the second time, and... damn it's good. Like - standalone good. It's just better, if you consider it as DnD session. It's a shame, that it failed, though. I really wish this guys made Rings Of Power.
I actually think the problem was that people really didn't trust this movie to be good because it was based on a "nerdy" table game. At least that wad my expectation when going into the theater eventhough I really enjoyed the movie by the end, and know a lot of people who didn't wanna watch it specifically because of the nerdy IP
I agree. Although that's a thing with this channel. He doesn't really talk much about the cultural zeitgeist reasons behind which films are successful and which aren't; Filmento tends to operate on the rather idealistic basis that good films are successful and bad films aren't, and if a film fails, it's always because of mistakes in the writing. Because of course that's his specialty, but always explaining it from the perspective of "this movie failed because of these writing flaws" I think is a little naive and misleading. I think brand recognition and cultural reasons outside the actual movie can have a very large impact. Not really meant as a criticism toward Filmento, the channel focuses specifically on writing and it's damn good at that.
@@professorgames3261 No. It just means that nerds are into it because of a special interest that you might not share. Knowing what you are and aren't interested in has nothing to do with 'social pressure'. It's okay to not be interested in every subculture and subgenre of everything.
Of all the movies that have came out in recent years, this was an absolutely terrific movie! That article about emasculating men probably hurt it a lot more than people consider. Yes, Pine was a less-than-badass character, but that's because he was playing a bard. In D&D, bards are the second line characters aka support classes like archers or second volley musket-men. Meanwhile, Rodriguez was a barbarian and her literal role was to beat the crap out of everything in front of her. I do agree that the characters were particularly safe and limited in terms of their range of growth. But for a single movie with multiple central characters, is it all that plausible that all the characters can excel? The Forgotten Realms books (the core source material) for the movie/ literature adaptation of the D&D games are all HUGE stories that are far larger than just one movie. I know this movie lost money, but I truly hope the producers can make a push for a sequel that goes further on all of these ideas.
I don't think he was even emasculated at all. Sure, he wasn't the one beating the enemies up, but he was definitely heroic, played to his own strengths, kept the party working together and wanted to both save his daughter and to fix his mistakes as a father. Plenty of stuff for men to aspire to without having to be a muscly jock.
@@houndofculann1793 The protagonist was clearly shown to be the brains of the operation, yeah. He wasn't perfect, and early on, was subject to criticism from his party members.. but as the story went on, by the end they all clearly respected and trusted his ability to make plans and improvise on them. I also noted that Holga's fights were carefully choreographed to show her sometimes having to use clever tactics or tricks to defeat her opponents, rather than always brute forcing her way through, which induce disbelief in the audience. That was good visual storytelling. They didn't just take fight choreography intended for an actor like Schwarzeneggar in his prime and insert Rodriguez in the role.
This movie was fantastic. I think many of the points you raised as potential problems were actually things that many of us appreciated about it. I didn't even know the movie existed until after it was out of theaters, and I'd assume marketing wasn't too great. Plus, wasn't there a huge controversy about Hasbro that made a lot of D&D fans refuse to see it in theaters? I'd be willing to bet that hit the box office numbers hard, especially given how well-received it's been.
I saw this with my fiancée who is not a massive movie-goer. With the owlbear smashing the witch at the end she said "didn't the hulk do that in avengers?" and that kind of says it all
I saw this with my D&D group on my birthday. It was one of my favorite movie-watching experiences. Seeing a bunch of characters, groups, monsters and locations that we had read about, then used for our own stories was incredible. It felt like we'd found something that our own stories could be a part of (which they were from the beginning). It felt like this world was bigger than our group but also felt like our group (and others) could have our own awesome stories in it.
bruhh, when they mentioned triboar trail I was like, "yoooooo, I played there before!" 😂 burned something like a dozen orcs with a single fireball there
As a fan I went to see it in the theatre bc I wanted it to do well. We as consumers can send messages to studios but we have to show up and support good art. Our society is cynical and adrift and this is a symptom of that.
I skipped it because I didn't want it to do well. Bragging about emasculating the male characters being "funny and fresh" was an instant nope from me. That hasn't been fresh for over a decade.
I think you don't understand concept of this movie? He had to punch a guy because sorcerer main atribute is Charisma, which is force of personality, after gaining confidence his charisma increased then he was able to use helmet. Also story is written by Dungeon Master, and you can feel that. Which is concept of movie. When DM runs a game and player for example destroy bridge, DM have to improvise something, for example portal gun. You can feel this game by watching this movie.
Actually, the film flopping had a lot more to do with something the Dungeons and Dragons' company, Wizards of the Coast, did than the current media landscape. Long story short, Wizards has been burning a lot of the community's good will, and then a few months before the film's release date, they decided to piss off their entire customer base by attempting to overturn the OGL 1.0 which basically allowed people to use the rules of Dungeons and Dragons to create their own content, which is why there's a ton of third-party D&D stuff. In exchange, Wizards gets a ton of free adertising and a self-propogating player base. To make matters worse, a leak from an employee at Wizards said that executives not only didn't care about their customer base, but (and I quote), "Sees them as obstacles to their money." Their reasoning for attempting to revoke the OGL 1.0 was purely for greedy reasons, as they felt D&D was "undermonetized", despite it being immensely profitable and popular. Because of this, there was a massive backlash from the community, in which the film was caught in the crossfire. I saw a lot of fans (including myself) getting really excited for the film prior to this incident. It's a shame too because it's actually a good film. Wizards just f'ed around and found out at the worst possible time
Yeah I think this is what probably killed a lot of interest from DnD gamers and the general gaming/nerd community. On top of that though the movie wasn't promoted very well. At least not where I live. I barely saw any advertising for it. A few posters at cinemas, one on a bus and as a trailer for a couple of other movies, that was it.
Watching honor among thieves I felt like it was supposed to be a series instead of a movie. Every 20 minutes it was like a start of a new episode (SPOILERS!) opening - puting together a crew - getting informations - sidequest with paladin - ending. 2 hours was just too short for that story
I believe that whole movie is an reenactment of multiple play session of a group of friends. The paladin is clearly the DMPC, he gave the same "Im so close to TPK you guys" death stare when we players mess up the elaborate puzzle our DM prepared for the session. Love the way he walk off into the background as the DM stop narrating him once his purpose is served.
@@xengk Supposedly the scene where he walked straight over the rock was improvised. The actor understood his character as, "I'm a righteous paladin, my path is always straight and true, never faltering." When he didn't hear cut, he just walked right over the boulder. Even the director was like, "keep rolling, I want to see what he'll do when he gets to that big rock."
17:02 I watched the movie with my DnD group and there's this friend who doesn't take the game all that seriously and everytime we ran up into an enemy he just threw a potato at it for no reason. When we watched this scene we went crazy 🤣
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves IS my #1 film of the year so far. I went in expecting camp, poor acting and cringe silliness; but instead, I was met with a GORGEOUSLY shot film, incredible costume design, insane visuals and the most charming well-acted cast of heroes and villains I think I've seen in forever from a film. I laughed ALOT, cheered and even teared up watching this film. I literally had to watch it several times over to find any flaws and if I had to nit-pick it would be the infamous teleporting characters but other than that... I really feel D&D:HAT is a damn there PERFECT film.
Yes I completely agree. It's sooo much fun and awesome. Me and fam r watching it over n over again. Not to mention we started playing DND thanks to it.
For me it is this movie and GotG3 coming out of nowhere and having no reason to be this good. The scene with the Intellect Devourer had me and my friends (D&D players and DM) laughing in tears at the in joke, while most of the audience were puzzled by our outburst. As players we have meta knowledge at how dangerous these things are, but once they walk passed the party we immediately know what it is implied about this group of characters we are following.
Ok let's be honest one of the reasons why this movie"flopped" was the marketing. " The most Chris pine that ever chris pinest." Seriously no one knew how to market this to anyone
You clearly didn't pay attention to the movie. The magic nullifying armband was gotten from the underground chambers below the maze. Both the sorcerer and druid wore one while in the maze until the druid had hers removed after putting her arm in the gelatenous cube. Before they left to the docks there were probably a dozen more of them with keys.
Their sole mistake was relying completely on the D&D brand instead of catching people's attention. It's a great movie and I think it accomplished pretty well what it tried to do, which is represent how an actual D&D campaign sorta feels like irl. Its comedic and laid back tone is an intended fetaure, I believe. It's unfortunate that just being a good movie doesn't make you money tho.
I like your point about "discussing at work to convince them to go see". When I went with friends from work and talked about the movie with other people from work they were all like: "oh but dnd is not my style it's too nerdy" they just shut off their brains and didn't wanna know if it is an enjoyable movie regardless of the setting for them it was just a thing for a very specific type of people. Unfortunately there could have been 15 amazing new scenes that noone has ever seen and were the most crazy stuff humanity hasa ever seen... It's still nerd stuff and "III am deeeefinitely not a nuuuurd *scuff scuff"
This is one of the few films I loved for it's semplicity as it perfectly represent a DnD campaing. To me, it's only problem was the release date, I mean, the OGL and the greatest blockbuster in animation hystory didn't help
D&D is what I wish ALL blockbusters would strive to be, at the very least -- character-wise, story-wise, stylistically, etcetera.... Not in terms of replication, but effort! D&D, despite being conceptually simple, really did the most with what it had -- no character, scene, or line-of-dialogue left hollow, lacking, or incomplete. It's really a shame that it bombed. You wouldn't believe my shock at hearing about it! Based on my experience, and my friends' experiences, this movie should have been a hit.
What a meh movie. All the best bits were told as flashbacks. Flashback got an awesome battle with a deadly dragon breathing staffing acid, we got an extended scene with a tubby dragon that rolled around a lot. Flashbacks got the sweet loving relationship between the main protagonist and his wife, as well as the daughter with her surrogate mother, we got a couple of shots of hugs, robbing us of the heart of the movie. Flashbacks got the cool heist at the beginning of the movie, which set up the relationship and capabilities of the team, we got lots of ice and waiting for a bird man to walk into the room. Apparently, the best parts of this movie, are in a different movie.
How to say you don't follow Hasbo/WOTC without saying it. The controversy of trying to cancel the DnD OGL had a huge impact too. That and the overprinting and overpowering of magic cards to cash in have been rubbing the DnD fan base wrong.
One last issue: the company that owns D&D, Wizards of the Coast (who is owned by Hasbro, and directly suffers for it), had a massive boycott of their products and services less than two months before the release of "D&D: HAT". I can't imagine having a large portion of your core audience absolutely furious with you is helpful when it comes time to drop into a hotly contested release schedule...
Filmento is one of the only few people I'm willing to listen to when it comes to explaining what they mean See when I saw "failure" in the thumbnail I thought the movie was bad. But I saw fans of DnD praise the film so I thought something must be up and it turns out he was just referring to the box office numbers
Yeah it's a well made movie with lots of thought put into it. Sadly, it was just heavily outshined by both Mario and John Wick and was also an unfortunate casualty from the massive community backlash regarding the D&d franchise.
This has been, far and away, my favorite flick of the year so far. It was *WAY* better than anybody thought it would be, and should've gotten way more love (and enough studio confidence to bankroll a 3D release). Sadly, when it was released, I have never seen so many great films at the theater at the same time...Mario, John Wick 4, Renfield, Evil Dead rise, AIR, Antman 3 and Avatar 2 were still hanging around. It was insane, and simply bad timing. Sure, the movie wasn't perfect, but it was a helluva good time, funny, exciting, gorgeous visually... and I think it will find its audience on streaming and become a widely beloved cult classic! You really cant compare this to 7th Son or the first D&D movie.
You know what I really really appreciated about the movie? The "badass" characters are not bitter and lame, they have a personality. The two younger people in the crew, were acting their age which is refreshing to see. The main character wasn't just a punshing bag, without him, the crew would fail and they learn to appreciate him.
I watched this randomly was expecting the usual stuff that studios do with IPs like this. Was happily surprised with it, brought me back to a happier time in cinema. Is it spectacular and must see? No. But neither is 90% of the shite that's come out in the last 5 or 6 years
@@himynameis3664I agree this movie was fun with no agendas. Holga was a strong female fighter but she took hits and had to adjust her strategy to win. DnD had to go against John Wick which is a hard fight. But you are right movies for the past few years have been freshly dropped, hot and steamy dog doodoo on a hot summer day in the desert.
They setup the shape shifting girl as a pure badass but her character stays stagnant for the whole movie and it seems she forgot her motivation
@@darickbrown9062 No agendas??? LOL are you serious? Why in EVERY GODDAMN movie the women is the badass, more intelligent and all the male characters are stupid and weak? I stop watch this DnD crap in the part the Michelle Rodriguez start kick evebody ass when Cris Pine was trying to cut his handcuff rope., like a IDIOT. This is the norm now?
Your appreciation doesn’t help the movie. Its useless
One thing that DnD did that was absolutely special in my book was that it felt like an actual DnD campaign. The discussion why a certain character is even in the group, the overly complicated heist plan that goes south due to "bad rolls" and was ultimately pointless anyway, the DMNPC paladin that joins the group for one quest, essentially takes care of it all by himself, and then leaves for no reason other than "it would ruin the game if this character stayed with the group". Every interaction just felt like Pen and Paper at your desk with friends. Granted, that is something that a vast majority of the viewing audience has no frame of reference for, so this amazing detail goes right over their heads.
It went over the video author's head too.
Less not mention that the big-bad driving force of the movie was not the villain, it was his underling. The story really felt like a fun adventure by seemingly unimportant characters, not some grand fantasy that most of Hollywood expects these films to be.
Oh, and that start to the film, it really felt like Chris Pine's character going over the lore of his character before the game session began, LMAO.
And the movie was filled with game moments, from every player OTHER than the bard making their Knowledge roll to recognize a famous hero. You continually had the feeling that the players were coming up with wacky ideas and the GM was running with it, because it was fun. And the personal stakes as distinct from the high stakes was actually kind of important. You can't have comedy feel safe in a scene with planetary stakes. Blockbusters keep escalating the stakes so much that people can't relate to it. The first movie is about dominating the planet, the next is about destroying it, then you have to increase the stakes to half the life in the universe, and then you increase the stakes to multiverse incursions where the entire universe could end? Normal people CAN'T RELATE to that. But they can relate to a well-intentioned parent goofing up, trying so hard for their kid but that drives them away. They can relate to the barbarian who left their tribe to be with the man their loved, but that very loss hurts her relationship with the man she loved. People can relate to that. The world dominating plot is mostly incidental, and helps the PERSONAL conflicts be resolved.
For a D&D player the movie brought life to experience, mechanics, and world lore... merging fan service with plot. I argue that every movie compared to in this critique were successful due to years of building a fan base and less on CCP. The D&D movie is unique and nuanced and I hope to see more productions for this fan base in the future. It was clear that the producers and actors respected and enjoyed the property and base community. I also think it made an excellent heist movie if you understand the game context.
@@starlarobinson9520 Too bad the writers didn't respect the community enough to keep their mouths shut during the press tour. Their joke about emasculating men killed this movie. They need to go take another look at the demographics that play DnD and then maybe avoid insulting 80+% of them.
I know that DnD is praised for being the Guardians of the Galaxy of the modern landscape, but those people would also prolly agree that it's heartbreaking to see such a laid back film bomb. Because we won't see more of it no more
its a great movie, This video from Filmento is the first one i felt pedantic.
I like the way DnD defeated their main Villain than Guardians 3.
High Evolutionary just got defeated instantly without putting a fight.
at first, I thought that too. But it is true that the movie did not do that well at the box office. Though I think the reason is the release date, maybe CCP actually exists. Who knows?
Good. This is the wrong age for such a treasure.
Wait this movie failed? I thought People liked it,
Oh filmento answered it.
I was a bit shocked when I saw it was a "failure". This is one of the greatest films I have watched this year
Agree
Naah it was bad 😂😂😂😂
@@atngaming2019Bad but better than 90% of the films that came out lately.
its because it was a streaming movie not a movie theater movie.
The problem with D&D is that its neither an established franchise nor does it do anything really different from your average blockbuster action movie. Even if it was good, it's not good enough to be profitable in the competitive world of modern movies
I like that the "idea" guy didn't all the sudden turn into some super secret god mode badass that won the fight single handedly. He was just the idea guy
The thing that makes no sense is bards are magic casters in D&d. For a movie that was generally lore accurate to the source material it felt out of place that all he could do is hit people with his lute. Outside of that, I agree.
@@stephenpardue2052 According Eddgins' official statblock his spell are all about charisma and speechcraft. So he was(?) casting all the time, it just wasn't visible.
@@matusfekete6503 unless you're an illusionist wizard or sorcerer, magically charming creatures is very much visible and charmed creatures realize they've been duped after the spell runs out. So no it doesnt work that way
@@stephenpardue2052 Paladin only used Divine Favour, because his blade was glowing? He then fought like he was maxed out in Dex.
Bard literally never used a spell. Even when he distracted the guards it was an illusion cast from the sorcerer.
Sorcerer only used his spells outside of combat except at the end. Very few times did he use them otherwise.
Druid basically only shape shifted.
@@stephenpardue2052 I think he was just a rogue that liked singing tbh
The problem isn’t that it failed as a movie. It’s that it cost too much for what it was. It looks like a fun mid-level action-adventure-comedy but with a blockbuster budget. People liked it because it was fun not because of the CGI.
I actually felt that the movie had an incredibly grand scale. I
You can tell this was a huge production that used its budget to its absolute limit with the sets, the costumes, and vfx... unlike 300mil marvel movies where they just stand in front of a green screen
@@NS-xx1ze words fail to describe how happy I was to see actors filming outside instead of a studio in Atlanta
@@NS-xx1ze I completely agree.
@@NS-xx1ze Sure, but the story did not match that.
The story more so focuses on the characters rather than a grand story. And on that front, it does a great job in my opinion.
One thing not mentioned it's that it came out right after the ogl debacle which caused 50% of actual DND fans to unsubscribe and boycott DND.
In the ttrpg world, Hasbro (company that owns DnD) slapped their entire customer base in the face and expected no consequences from it.
Since January to release date people stopped talking positively about DnD.
I will never understand why thy thought that was the best timing to change something that had been working for 20+ years
@@pinkliongaming8769 it worked fine for M:TG, you can't really blame them for being greedy enough to try when M:TG players happily rolled over and took it
commenting to bump this.
@@Ozhull I mean, there really isn't a M:TG competitor and the remaining "fan base" were reddit gold kind of people so they were more than glad to accept it.
Can someone explain what happened that caused everyone to get mad? I'm new to DND so I don't know about this
2 things:
- bad marketing
- wizards of the coast pulling shenanigans a few weeks before launch that sucked out most of the community's good will.
It was a fun movie. A great popcorn muncher of a time. It's sad to see this one bomb.
Wotc burnt 20 years of good will in two weeks. They were trying to pull a Bud Lite, and there customers will hate them for decades now.
Totally agree on the marketing. I thought it looked stupid from the trailer. Then I loved the film.
Interesting as I don’t even know who they are. But I guess DnD folks would
3. The directors saying that they purposely emasculated the male characters
Wow, the creators intentionally undermined their straight White male lead hero, plus White people made up only a tiny minority of all the actors in this thoroughly White-medieval-European setting. It's almost as if we should resent movies that hate us and push the agenda of our g_n0cide, huh?
i think the charm of the movie is that it is literally a game of DnD.
as the wizard sets of the bridge trap for example ofcourse someone has a portal gun.
because in those type of games people just loot everything and don’t even take a closer look. so its relateable and funny to the people that know. admittedly this targed audience is very small especially when it comes to big screen cinema.
The amount of times in games I've run/played in where the players screwed up the puzzle and need to be given an OP item to get out of it is unreal. Especially since the players will abuse the hell out of that item for the rest of the game
I found it hilarious their portal plan absolutely failed and it ended up paying off, just not the way we expected
I hated that McGuffin and turned off 5 minutes later
Also, it makes sense that the DM would give them a portal gun as a backup in case the party mucks up the riddle.
An overlooked GEM of a movie. Had such a good time watching this
Omg I LOVED THIS FILM
Same here
It was fun, the tiefling escape, the bigchungus dragon , final fight was great.
Same here I enjoyed it
@@alexMendoza-wl5ojbig chungus dragon 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The reason I loved it are... well, a lot of the reasons you described.
A big rule of dnd parties is that nobody should have 'protagonist syndrome'
You're a team, equals. It's not fun to be left out of the spotlight.
Also, well... I'm a dnd player, and it just felt like any other dnd game (though shorter than most). It didn't need to be massive in scope or have 'new stuff', it just needed to capture that feeling that I get playing my favorite game. And it definitely did that for me.
This movie reminded me of the early 2010s comedies like Mirror Mirror and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Maybe they’re not totally amazing, but they are very sweet and fun and just well made overall. I wouldn’t say it’s must see, but I certainly don’t regret having seen it.
Absolutely
Agree. Its a fun movie.
Or Ella Enchanted with Anne Hathaway. Great comedy.
Mirror Mirror ending with a Bollywood song out of nowhere because it was directed by an Indian was a shock.
"Your Highness."
The reason this film worked narratively and as a crafted artwork was down to one thing:
It understood the audience who were going there to see it because it said the words "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title. Not people who read the books or are fanatical about the lore, but the vastly greater number of people who turn to play those games week after week, and make stories with it.
The attitude at every successful table is "sorry, you want to do what with WHAT?" and then the DM/GM just has to figure out how to make that work. That's the story they told from the beginning. The actual plot was largely a sidestory to the endless shitshow that is a group of murderhobos with different reasons for playing trying to survive an endless series of puzzles guided only by a rulebook, their collective imagination and some talking. The entire plot was a long series of McGuffins attached by loose plot devices and even looser plans to resolve challenges that the party, by and large, decided to seek out themselves. Even the discussions about the physics of the portal superweapon the DM accidentally gave them to solve their linear dungeon are straight out of a game. "A WORM!"
The characters are characters as portrayed by the people who played them. The Party is the unit of DnD and in a good campaign, the story unfolds chaotically around them. The DM will never let you relax into boredom if they can avoid it, so every inch of chaos and randomness is milked for all it's worth, stories are brought to a close in haphazard fashions, details are forgotten left right and centre. Further, since every other character apart from them is acted by one person, they all come across as variations on the same theme - whatever mood the DM is in on that day. There's a few times the exasperation of the DM is written into the scene directly, and it sounds Marvellish, but it's not. Parties tend to explode any plans you have in about five minutes or less. It's not irony or auto-referential humour. It's genuinely just because even the absolute best DMs can be completely overwhelmed by the combined narrative creativity of five people who have decided that this particular line of thinking is absolutely far more entertaining than anything you had in mind.
Further, each character and NPC in the campaign was there just to give the party a challenge to deal with or overcome. They even start in prison - that's one of the standard two openings for a new group. The insanity that follows - the hastily named NPC that turned up from a previous campaign, the new player who they need to find who is super socially awkward and doesn't really know what they want to do other than turn into an owlbear, even the ridiculously over the top ancient mage enemy who is scheming around off screen - all of it is direct from a standard campaign. The paladin who just walks off mid conversation - that entire exchange is directly out of "can we stop him or trap him somehow?" "No, he's just walking away." "Where?" "Away." "What direction?" "Away from you." "What if we try and trap him in a bag of holding?" "He's already too far away to do that, walking along the shoreline." "The shoreline goes against a big cliff right?" ...shit. "He climbs over the rocks and is gone now."
So if it's so good, why didn't it make that much money?
Well... Because if you're unfamiliar with that narrative structure and you don't understand why characters are acting like they are, they do just look like Marvel characters. That's not because they are - they aren't, they're far more interesting to write than Marvel characters because almost everyone at a DnD table is a much more interesting person from anything from Marvel. It's because the awkward humour and in-jokes and self referential circular plot lines are what happens when five or six slightly socially awkward people get together to tell stories.
Without that framework, you're going to struggle to understand what's going on. Sure it's fun and charming and funny and well made and even quite pretty, but it's not Marvel pretty and the characters are new and you have no investment in it. There's nothing spectacular about what's going on, played by characters that are, at their core, quite generic albeit extremely well acted and played. Having played a game gives you a subtext which immediately lets you in on the fact that the entire film is one massive in-joke.
In-jokes don't tend to make money unless there are lots of people who get them.
This guy DnDs.
Well said.
I agree with you thruout the whole comment except...the Marvel part,MCU was also used to be like this,they were charming,enjoyable and actually good...every character had much more difference to be in their separate genre,and their team work resembled much more from ttrpg games,they were honestly...truely diverse but not only on the face value...
Yeah, you can easily imagine a lot of it as a game. Like the collapsing bridge scene.
DM: * relays the complex trap through his DMPC *
Simon: * activates the trap * "Oops"
DM (internally): "Shitfuckdammit I didn't prepare any other way across, and we're only one hour into this session, I can't just end it here so I could make them an alternate path... Ah, got it!"
DM (out loud): "Simon, roll me an Arcana check."
Simon: "Why?"
DM: "Just do it please."
Simon: "Alright." * rolls * "I got a 19."
DM: "You notice a strange staff hanging out from Holga's bag. You never gave it a second thought, but now in this light you recognize it as a 'hither-tither staff'. It works basically like a portal gun from Portal."
Simon: "Cool!"
Breaks my heart to see a movie like this fail, I loved it! Was a great time and really entertaining
I think that you missed a major talking point and that’s how immediately preceding the release of the movie WOTC sabotaged themselves by pissing off most of their own fan base. I disagree with your entire premise for why the movie failed. All the elements you are describing are what made it a great D&D movie. They nailed it. Not the best fantasy movie. But the best D&D movie for sure. I loved it
That is his point being the best D&D movie today is not enough to be a success. It is very good and it is a failure at same time.
You've literally just pointed out his main point.
A success - Yes. Profitable? No and therefore will never get made again.
@Luz maria people are really underestimating how angry the hard-core fans are. The people that spend thousands of dollars a year on DnD merch are in just sit back and watch it burn mode.
I’ve watched all of them, but calling this the best D&D movie isn’t saying much. The others were technically horrible movies.
If we learned one thing from hollywood it is that quality doesn't translate to box office gains.
It's definitely better than all the garbage Disney disgorged the last ten years taken together. Some of his points may be legit, but he overlooked many of D&D's creative ideas.
D&D was an amazing movie that did everything right, except choosing a release date. I had a wonderful time watching it. It adapts D&D experience with perfect details.
I definitely liked that it captured the tabletop experience pretty well, but generally speaking I thought it was pretty mid. I didn't really care about any of the characters, other than maybe the paladin, and the plot seemed disjointed and sluggish. I actually think making the movie have a lot of the elements of a TTRPG might have hurt more than it helped, since only TTRPG players are going to appreciate those aspects of the plot.
This movie failed because they told everyone they were going to emasculate the male characters so most people avoided it. All the interracial couples and non-whites in what is supposed to be a European setting also caused people to avoid it.
Sure, it adapts the D&D experience quite well, until you get a player who wants to roll a Druid with unlimited uses of wild shape, and then realizes that D&D Druids can't actually turn into owlbears. :D
That's the problem, it tried to appeal to DnD fans first before being a movie. I'm not a DnD fan/player, but I can totally see the love the movie gives to DnD. From, the costume, character designs, the brief references to DnD creatures, heck, I think there were people who LARP(?) during the
(spoiler(?))maze segment (spoiler)
but as a movie? The characters jump from scene to scene rarher than transition naturally, it relies heavily on the mcguffin, and the story beats and emotional pay off were just lacking. The movie has an amazing setting with a subpar story/story that wasn't translated very well into the cinemas.
@@nattteo As a TTRPG player, i didn't appreciate the memberberries. I didn't want to see a group faff about for an hour and a half before getting to the actual story.
Personally, i had an issue rooting for any of the characters. None of them stood out to me where I thought "i really want to achieve their goal."
Movie Neverwinter never felt like Neverwinter to me; and I've been to Neverwinter in enough officially licensed material (whether book or game) to see that the city there was just a generic fantasy city. All of the sets (and locales) felt like check boxes that the movie had to go to because it's what a test group told them people wanted to see.
The enemies never felt like enemies. They had barely interaction with the main cast, to where the Thay Sorcereress' only lines to the main cast outside of the very end was screeching about the wildshape druid.
It never felt like it was about people that were really in the forgotten realms going on an adventure. It felt like a two hour commercial for "pop culture DnD" (which is a thing that i've come to be annoyed by in general) and they expected us to go buy the Keys to the Golden Vault book after getting out of the theatre.
He was a Bard. His role is to inspire and support the others in his party. In the world of D & D he was perfect, in my opinion.
That's not how writing works.
Actually, that's not even how DnD works.
I've played since '78. I think they nailed it pretty well.
@@giantotter319 What do you mean that's not how DnD works? Have you never played DnD?
That right there is the reason why it failed. It has to make sense in the movie itself not just the DnD world. With a 200 million budged you can’t only appeal to a small niche audience and expect your movie to not fail
@@texanplayer7651 You don't make a character purely based on class, you can make a bard with all kinds of dynamics. Unless you are some boring grognard tryharding with builds and looking only at numbers. And even if you had to play the character the way the class is made, it would be wrong - bard has subclasses that completly shove aside the idea about supporting and inspiring.
I kinda liked Ed’s character. It matched how a lot of people in manager / supervisor roles feel. You’re just kinda putting things tg as you go, keeping things moving, and even when you’re unsure if a plan will work - you execute. You try not to let your team, the truly skilled, know you’re unsure.
I think the charm of this movie is imagining how these scenarios would play out at the table in your buddy's house, with you and your friends clutching character sheets trying to bullshit yourselves out of a tricky situation. All of the contrived things feel real because as a DM you sometimes have to improvise. All of the "idiot plot" moments where the characters are just stupid (like when the puzzle bridge gets destroyed) reminds me of the dumb things my friends have done at the D&D table. It makes the movie feel really genuine as an adaptation of a TTRPG experience WITHOUT having to force a cliche where the camera pans back to a bunch of nerds in a basement talking about what just happened in the movie.
I was so surprised to see how good this movie was, wildly entertaining throughout and with some very creative and exciting sequences, the comedy works, the characters work and the overall story also is compelling and original enough. Just the kind of movie we don't get anymore
I don't know mate, it was an okay movie, the jokes didn't land for me at all, but some sequences were nice, but never in a million years would I go to a theater to watch it, especially at a time when a movie like John Wick 4 is also available.
@@kabeltelevizio Indeed. If we compare the movie with other releases it definetly is up there in terms of quality, since its harder and harder to find a decent movie nowdays.
...however, that alone doesn't make the film great on its own. We are getting to the point where there is so much trash floating around that anything decent is seen as a masterpiece. It is a fun movie, but I don't see it as anything crazy to lose your head over.
@@kabeltelevizio I actually thought it was quite bad. MCU level humor with a pointless fetch quest and predictable characters.
@@kabeltelevizio that's a you problem, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
@@MyEmkill sounds like a you problem, mate.
Another factor is that the movie was under a minor boycott by the very community it was supposed to appeal to. Which is a minor saga in itself, but I would wager it influenced quite a few people to not go to watch it in theaters and instead pirate it.
yeah me.
why did people boycott it ?
The only time even heard about this movie was reactions to the interview when they bragged about emasculating the men. It's really sad that they made a good movie in spite of that, but it was a massive marketing failure.
I've seen a few movies like that where the director and/or cast do a press tour and shout how proud they are about the progressive themes in the movie, only to discover they lied and the movie was fine, or they grossly overstated it. It's like they think the majority of the world are far left activists and they're trying to bait them into seeing the movie. It's baffling.
@@Popcornmix494 wizards of the coast is a shit company that sends PMCs at your door because *they* accidentally leaked their own unreleased MTG cards.
@@1estel1ch.42 that was recent, the boycott around the movie was about the new Open Game License they tried to pass, but got leaked
I'm hoping this movie finds a second life on video and streaming, because it's a lot of fun, and I definitely want a sequel. Other films have had a sequel greenlit because the video release was so popular. I'm hoping the same happens for this one.
Me too 🥺 I'm not even a fan or familiar with D&D, but our family went to go see it & we LOVED the film! It was such a feelgood, fun time at the theater, and I would really love to revisit the world again!
The creators intentionally undermined their straight White male lead hero, plus White people made up only a tiny minority of all the actors in this thoroughly White-medieval-European setting. It's almost as if we should resent movies that hate us and push the agenda of our g_n0cide, huh?
Woke garbage.
Edgar is charismatic. He is the bard. He brings the team together. He convinces them to keep going when they are thinking of giving up.
This movie was great
It was genuinely the best film I've seen in years, in terms of going to the cinema and having a really good time, and appreciating how well constructed the whole thing was. Everything was coherent. Everything was signposted. All the jokes were properly set up. And everyone I've spoken to basically says the same thing; it was an uplifting and fun experience, that was actually more clever than it had any right to be (the portal antics for example - the fact that the party's plan is thwarted because the surface upon which one of the portals is attached falls onto the floor, and due to basic physics, there's nothing to be "pushed" against so they can't get through? That's S-tier nerding).
I'm a very harsh critic, who will absolutely take a massive dump on most modern productions for their many sins and failures... but this? This was a wholesome, entertaining, well crafted film that I'll be buying the moment it comes out on DVD/Bluray.
It suffered, evidently, due to marketing, release schedule, and the controversies surrounding the actual franchise.
The jokes alone weren't just one note. And some were actually used to move the plot forward. Most fun Ive had watching a movie in a long time.
@@reffa2858 Yeah, like the potato thing; establishing that the Barbarian likes potatoes sets up the final potato-fling at the villain near the end.
Meanwhile, did you notice that when Simon is trying to attune to the helmet, and he first goes into that magic/dream world, he identifies what he thinks is his "great grandfather", and the great grandfather laughs, but doesn't say that's who he is.
It's because it was never the great grandfather; it was always Simon. Simon just assumed that his biggest opponent would be his own heritage, instead of himself.
@@NicholasBrakespear those were great ones you pointed out. I picked up on the finger flame. Not only was it used to distract the crowd to steal their money, but it was used when they were cornered by the dragon to combust his gas breath and escape.
When the king talks about how the red mage can explain the vaults intricacies in excellent detail to the two leaders, she barely says anything then stands still in awkward silence for a moment. But she did that because there is a literal fly on the wall as the druid trying to spy to learn more about the vault to break in it. The mage say as little as possible because she knows someone/something is listening. And of course it gives chase to the epic changeling chase scene.
I love this movie. I may watch it again just to see if there is more I missed.
I think a big problem was how Mario was presented. Theatres want to always have a kid movie so they keep them running for a long time but every time I looked at theatres Mario was given so many theatres that it pushed out tons of other movies. Also it is possible some people were boycotting it because of what the company that owns DnD had been doing it really pissed off fans regardless of how good the movie is.
We saw both the Mario Movie & this one, and my god... Mario was TERRIBLE. 🙄 This movie was sooo much more enjoyable & funny. Mario felt like it was made for 4yr Olds, despite that youngest generation not even being near as nostalgic for the brand. I was bored to tears watching that stupid movie, and couldn't believe it made as much money as it did! Nostalgia is a helluva drug. I'd much prefer D&D get a sequel film, but we all know Mario will get one instead, and poor D&D will be forgotten about, despite it being the superior film.
As a dnd enthusiasts and dungeon master the movie was fairly accurate on the dnd lore, I think part why more people didn't go watch it the dnd community seem to protest against Hasbro for trying to get an OGL passed making it to where they would've own the rights to all the content of all DND creators which I feel where they lost because the community would've definitely saw multiple times just to support so we could get future movies they could've been more amazing and sad we might not now
Could be, but I think the dnd community would not have made a big difference. I think the problem was that the general public does not engange with dnd and so they think "meh, I don't now the story of dnd" so they don't go see it. I, for example had to explain to my friends that dnd is more like a framework rather than a storyline, so they would go watch it with me.
That is a really blurry and kind of semi accurate description of what happened. Wizards of the coast went to war against basically all d&d players, provoking a more intense backlash than Bud Lite. And they deserve it all. Even the original lawyers thar drew up the OGL joined the lawsuit against them. When all your own lawyers really against you, you done mess up.
I had forgotten about that. I didn't watch the movie because Wizards of the cost banned mixed race characters and because of using pinkerton agents
>DnD enthusiast
Christ man, I hope your condition gets better. We will find a cure, bro.
@@crowbarfish0812
Being better than you or any dnd player isn’t a challenge. It is a given.
You've got a really good point about the characters not stepping beyond the boundaries of their specialties. The barbarians in this movie & Vox Machina both had their strongest & most heartfelt moments when they were shown to be vulnerable and caring despite their propensity to f*ck everyone up all the time. Other characters in the movie weren't really given that shot
I get it as something done on purpose, with the idea to present the stereotyped adventurer character. Also interesting how secondary characters are handled, as it mimics how NPCs behave in average D&D games.
I think that’s a positive as it allows all characters to feel like they have a purpose
Looks good on paper, but how exactly would that help? All the characters already had great character arcs and challenges - the mage wasn't able to cast spells properly, the druid did not trust the group and bards are underdogs just by definition. The palladin was a Mary Sue, but that is a DnD inside joke and my favourite part of the movie honestly.
Does the movie really need a sequence where the bard is locked in a closed space and needs to overpower a swordsman? Would be most boring scene in it IMO. Might be done in a cool way, but doesn't really make the story better.
The barbarian has her vulnerable moment with her ex-husband
Bards are underdogs by definition? Bards are one of the most powerful classes in D&D.
A well played bard can be the glue that holds the group together. Sure, they won't be the one that deals the most damage or gets the most kills, but a good bard is the soul of the party and can and will be the MVP.
And it's simply because of one thing: bards are a full support class that enables the rest of the party to be at their best and can often save everyone from certain death.
As a DM I'd be more afraid of an optimized bard than an optimized paladin or wizard.
11:21 fun fact, halflings were actually called hobbits in the beggining and are essentially hobbits, but it seems hobbits were JRR Tolkien intellectual property because he coined the term first, so now in any fantasy you have to call hobbits halflings
The problem with the movie IMO, at least in the regard on how many people went to see it, it's that there's a lot of stuff that requires you to know a little about the world, watching people explain the details is absolutely insane, every scene is full of detail
Having seen your brilliant (as usual) points, I couldn't help but notice you forgot to mention one outside factor which tipped the scales on the profitability of Dungeons & Dragons-- the boycott. After WotC pulled some dodgy nonsense with their new Open Gaming License, it caused such a storm of controversy that everyone who played the game was pulled in, and many people discussed boycotting this movie as retribution.
Three Reddit dudes hardly effect the success of a movie of that scale.
It was actually a large amount of the community. It even caused Hasbro/Wizards of The Coast to delay and rewrite the OGL because of the backlash.
They also invited several big wigs within the third party content creator community to a summit, where things got very heated. It's absolutely not just three guys and reddit.
There's was like 10 of u lmao
This movie had no reason to be this funny and heartfelt. It was such a fun movie.
I didn't laugh once while watching this snoozefest
@@corypalmer5495I did and many people did. Many of friends and family did. And apparently many of the people in here did. So idk 🤷🏾♂️
@@corypalmer5495 i had a good time watching it
@@corypalmer5495 - Whatever, my family loved it, and I hope it gets a sequel. 😏 I know we weren't alone in enjoying it.
Yeah, I think the thing most telling about its release date screwing it over was that it actually had a decent opening weekend. It's just that once Mario came out the next week, it pretty much swallowed its entire audience in one felled swoop.
Yup. And with the economy being really tough on most actual human beings this year, people aren’t going to go see a second movie in the same week or same month, especially when one of those other movies is something they know will be an easy good time for their kids to experience, with Mario. This reminds me of that time Disney released Solo right before the biggest Avengers movie of all time. When will any of these big film companies realize that sneaking in one week BEFORE a huge anticipated movie comes out isn’t going to help ticket sales one bit? If anything, bump it to a week or two AFTER a huge release, while audiences are pumped up from a good experience and might want to double down the next weekend.
@@itsd0nk 2018's Solo (May 25) didn't release a week before Infinity War (April 27). It did release a week after Deadpool 2 (May 18), though, and three weeks before the next big blockbuster, Incredibles 2 (June 15).
That's really taking a lot of liberties I think. The audience that would have seen this movie and the audience that would have seen Mario are mostly 2 different audiences (though there is some overlap).
Not to mention, seeing one movie doesn't exclude someone from seeing the other. If someone wants to see a movie they will, and people just didn't want to see this one.
I'm affraid that a lot of the character properties get lost on non D&D player viewer is how the party also happens to represent the usual player archetypes. Barbarian roll player that just enjoys the carnage. The bard being the drama kid that just wants to generate the story, the druid wall-flower that just stays in the background enjoying being around etc. Also the story gets another dimension if you view it as a desperate DM trying to keep it all together SOMEHOW (because the players derailed the plot as soon as they cooked the hare-brained escape scheme) and still keep the action moving.
I just watched this last night and there is another factor as to why the numbers were so low... Hasbro.
They own D&D and did the brand dirty and have been losing fans of many brands due to their poor decisions that do not benefit fans.
My D&D group was dead set to see this movie, and we were going to see it as a group. Then Hasbro did some shady things with the D&D app, as well as sent the Pinkertons to a guy's house for acquiring Magic cards before their release date, and charging away too much for crappy action figures.
As a group, we decided not to go see this movie as a means to not give Hasbro more of our hard earned money. Also, whilst Hasbro can screw over figure collectors but still have customers, the D&D community banded together strong and just about boycotted them and currently looking to other brands for their rpg sessions.
So, whilst I thought the movie was entertaining and well made, we weren't jumping to pay movie ticket prices because that sends Hasbro the wrong message.
Not saying this is a sole factor, but I am sure it had an impact.
It's always heartbreaking to see one of the best movies of the year bombing...
I don't think it did bomb, it did well financially, and with audience and critic reviews alike.
@@DrMattPhillips this movie had a budget of 150 million and made 200million. Not only it didn't break even but it also lost hundrends of millions of dollars for the studio. It is a bomb.
@@RespectTheSourceMaterial i think you dont know what break even means lmao
@@RespectTheSourceMaterial I didn't say it was a smash hit, I said it did well-considering expectations within the studio for this film, which were slim to none. The fact that Paramount is developing a spin-off series, according to reports, implies that their goal and effort are more long-term in building a brand/cinematic universe, rather than in relation to this specific film being a break-out hit. So in reference to people within the company saying the film surpassed their expectations, the narrative around the studio, considering it a bomb, although might be true among some if you know things I don't (I'm not at the company, so I can only go by the press), but if a bomb means a film entry being a financial net-negative on the studio, the studios reaction doesn't seem to implicate such, hence my original comment.
@@michellefernandez3155 I don't think you know how box office works lmao. The budget of movies is always displayed WITHOUT the marketing costs and without the amount theaters take. For a 150 million dollar film to break even it needs to make 300 million, and for it to make profit it needs way more than that. That's why you were hearing news outlets saying the new avatar movie needs to make a billion dollars to break even, because it had a budget of 350-400million so when you add the marketing costs and the theater cuts it all adds up.
Don't be condescending about things you don't know my man.
Another thing that also happened is that Wizards of the Coast blew up their own IP 6 weeks before the release date. They decided to claim all fan released content as their own by updating an irrevocable document called the OGL (Open Gaming License) and quite a few gamers I know boycotted this out of sheer principle.
I think this will do well in the after-market, be it on DVD or release. It has the sort of energy of a movie people happily put on when you want to watch something without thinking too much.
100% it's a very fun watchable movie you can put on in the background at a gathering or when you're on your computer.
I think your probably right.
I mean the first 3 movies all have cult followings and it seems like the general consensus is that this one was MUCH better (I didn't want to see it in theaters because of the WOTC licensing bull)
it's saddening to see this fail, but i feel like this is one of those good movies to watch/stream at home just to savour the goodness. it's actually one of the best recent fantasy film i've seen bc the characters actually DO have character in them, and the story isn't all focus on the special effects or the quest. and i also like how they didn't humanize the villains to make everything complicated. it's very easy to follow but not boring. tho, like i said, it may just be a bit too long to enjoy in a cinema, and maybe most ppl judged it as another mediocre fantasy story based on trailers or the first adaptation decades ago. but really, this is one good film you wouldn't mind watching again on movie nights if you just give it a chance. hoping something can make it go viral on social media.
I've always wanted a dungeons & dragons film based on the old 80s cartoon. Imagine the premise, a bunch of kids go on a fairground ride & gets transported to this netherworld where they meet dungeon master (Anthony Hopkins) he adorns them with their magical gifts, they must battle venjor & try to find a way home.
If done right, could even turn into a trilogy of films.
You can tell the movie was made with a bit of love compared to some other films...
This movie is by no means a 500 million-dollar box office success. While it's fun and entertaining, it made 200 million dollars, which should be the expected revenue from the start.
The problem lies in the excessive cost of producing the movie. It shouldn't have been so expensive!
That is the problem no, if it was not that expensive it would probably don't as good as it is, we have no way to know what they would cut and how they would change the movie to fit the new smaller budget.
This movie was never expected to make money. It was made to be a big in your face commercial for DnD books, like the heist adventure book "The Keys to the Golden Vault."
@@frostmagemarii LMAO, a hundred AD&D books would not be worth the time for Hollywood. We're not talking about Disney toys here.
IMO the biggest problem this movie had was something outside of its control: The Marketing. For those that dont know, one of the first advertisements done for the movie was how they were going to emmasculate the male characters. This was followed by a series of similar news, like how the female fighter was going to show her Strong Female Character energy by showing her hairy arm pits, and due to the actual landscape of entertainment, im convinced that this scared off a majority of the audience more than being stuck between two highly awaitted movies.
Yea I agree tbh
The marketing definitely didn't help. It was a very fun film, it captured the dynamics of a tabletop session. I'm hoping it ends up developing a cult following.
yes, this is a HUGE recurring problem that hollywood is really only now beginning to tackle. They are very far left and most people involved in movies are very far left. The problem is 90% of people are NOT far left. So them saying this kind of stuff turns off way too many people. They live in an echo chamber and have not even realized that what they say is turning people off. I think they are slowly starting to realize this, but they have a lot of denial.
Weird how all movies that market themselves like that end up failing, huh. It's almost as if people just want entertaining movies and the advertisement should be about how entertaining the movie is.
Which is unfortunate because the only way Edgin "fails" at being masculine is he isn't a badass fighter and considering his role as a bard that makes perfect sense (also you dont have to be conan the barbarian to be masculine) and Holga does literally none of the stereotypical "strong independent female character" stuff aside from being physically strong which again makes sense because of her role. Im honestly surprised they said stuff like that considering it turned out to not even be true AND it likely turned a lot of people off of the movie
1:12 Is my math off? Movie cost 150 mil. It made 200 mil in the box office (so, not including millions after box office). So, they made a profit of 33% THEN it moved out of the box office and made more money. He said it lost a small fortune.
What am I missing?
*pushes glasses up* I'm actually that "wizard" is a wild Magic Sorcerer. That shapeshifter is druid, but they do refer to her as a SS. that rogue is a bard, not a rogue. no the owlbear going straight up hulk smash on the Red Wizard, that was the "did you see that?! Did you see that !" Moment, plus the whole scene before all of that where they were all fighting the Red Wizard at the same time.
I get your points but most of the time was clawing at my skin going "But that is DnD!" The greatest thing about his movie is it shows not just the world of Faerun, it shows you how Dungeons and Dragons is played. And you don't need to understand one concept of D&D, because all you need to know is explained in the film, is concise bites, no long drawn out info dumps.
Dungeons and Dragons is an adventure, that has heart. It can pull at your heart strings one session, and in the next your about to puke from laughing so hard.
It shouldn't be that hard to make her see the truth. Have you actually talked with kids? lmao. You can blow their mind with a coin/card trick, and they turn around still be in disbelief that it was just sleight of hand. Teenagers? they make up their minds and that is that for the most part. It won't be till years later, that they realize what their folks were talking about. I mean we have all probably been there once or twice in our lives. As teens you think you got it figured out. your parents just don't get it, and then later on in life, especially if you have your own kids it hits like a smack in the face that your folks were right about something.
But I do get your point at the end, it almost sounds like you wanted them to come out with a Avenger's End game film, that has not earned that. After all DC tried to do that with the Justice League, and though the IP and star power might of brought them some money, it was wholly panned in scores, and reviews because it was not earned.
Personally my friends and I all thought it looked really good, but everytime we discussed it, the conversation ended with "Can't wait to catch it on whatever streamer it ends up on" going to see it in theaters never even entered our minds
I mean, as someone who almost never goes to theaters because of how expensive they keep getting, the only way I'd've gone to see John Wick 4 in theaters is if I had a free ticket
@@mezzb ngl, streaming services DID save a couple movies from utter failure the last few years.
So there may be hope yet.
Hopefully it gets great performance on streaming enough to be noticed by execs. Either that or if it does really well with physical media sales, but that’s not extremely likely these days, especially not with the large percentage of DnD fans being terminally online and just streaming and pirating it.
Seeing it in a theater was a really nice experience
Yeah with the price of movies nowadays I'm glad I didn't pay for it tbh I'm having to watch it in more the one sitting if that makes sense cause I wasn't really engaged like with other fantasies ,,, but it's alright , probably better then the old one ?
Or idk I cried when snails died when I was a kid LOL
And the hero felt like more of a hero then Chris pines character but his character was funny nonetheless , bard giving hype to his comrades I get it I guess lololol
A lot of the gripes listed are explainable if you consider this: the movie is a filmed version of an actual game of DnD, with all of the foibles of keeping multiple players engaged, and the unexpected dice rolls. If you take that into account it is extremely fun and funny to think about the players playing the game we are watching.
They conveyed this very, very well.
I think it was intended to add another layer of enjoyment for people who have played tabletop RPGs before, while still being a fun movie for people who haven't.
There will also be people who haven't played RPGs before, but who will in future,and they will then retroactively see the references in the movie :D
Totally agree. Though, it works better as those reenactment of campaign stories than a movie by itself. It's fine, but it kinda shows it didn't adapted too well as a movie.
Okay but general audiences don't give a f😅k about your nerd game.
Yep. Felt like one of the games played and like some of the DnD sessions I watched. Fun stuff.
Yes. exactly. That's why people who actually play DnD loved it.
As someone who saw this movie in theaters and had a good time, I have a strong feeling that less than 6 people saw the maze scene and thought of Wrath of the Titans. I think less than 6 people have ever thought about Wrath of the Titans
It's sad to see this movie underperform for the same reasons it feels so much like a real D&D campaign you would actually play with your friends. It feels like a concious choice from the creators to keep everything laid back because it captures the spirit of the game. If they went for a style that fit the state of the industry more it would probably lack the fun vibe that it is praised for now.
'we can never stop failing cause the minute we do, we fail'
this is actually a nice quote
No wonder dnd players are such subhuman failures who don’t have a proper job, a car and an actual gaming rig.
No wonder DnD players are such a disgrace, an insult to their bloodline.
Huh?
I really enjoyed this movie. I get what Filmento is saying about it not having a bunch of wild sequences and not being a thrill ride, but, for me, that was part of its charm. I thought it had heart, was funny, and had an appropriate amount of action. I liked all the characters, and I found myself rooting for them. In fact, compared to the average 'popcorn' movie these days, I was significantly more invested in this film's characters and story. So, yeah, I liked it quite a bit. Now, as for Filmento's question... did I see it in the theater? ...No. I didn't. _But_ I rarely go to the theater anyway, so I don't think that means much.
I haven’t enjoyed a movie like I did with this in quite some time, it really captured that late 90s-early 2000’s adventure popcorn flick, which also had heart and stakes that were relatable and not “the universe is gonna end”
I loved this movie! I had no idea it was a flop! It was brilliantly funny and well cast.
I also liked that they didn't make the main character and holga become romantically involved because i liked their friend dynamic and felt it would be ruined by bs romance that they usually toss in these kinds of movies.
I think the two main reason why it flopped was due to the release date as well as one of the directors stating that they love emasculating men. When I heard that, it completely turned me off as that statement just brought so many modern movies into mind that basically makes the man a blubbing idiot and the woman is the one who solves everything and is the usial "strong female character". However, I did end up watching it when it came out for home viewing do to a recommendation from a gaming RUclipsr who is also into DND and said that if you are a fan, you shall love the movie and I greatly enjoyed it.
@@Ironica82 Same, really. The first D&D movie was terrible, and the trailers didn't do much to make this look better. I had other stuff to watch when this came out. And the emasculating men comment. Dear lord, I hope the person who made that comment got a dressing down from whoever it is they need to answer to because I cannot see how uttering that could have any possible upsides.
Wound up eventually seeing, and loving it, in a second run theatre after I saw a nerdy youtuber I follow enthusing about the movie. But without both of those, I would have happily skipped this one.
@@Ironica82i think another reason is the audience. i knew enough dnd to understand what they were going for, like how the success was left to luck, but there isnt a big enough audience that will watch in theatres. the whole point of the video talks abt how this movie had no chance of making a profit because it doesn't pull generic audience. mb before when tickets were cheap ppl wouldve watched it as an activity but now going to the theatres is only rlly left for big films like barbie or oppenheimer
@@Ironica82Really? I never once got the sense that either of the two main male characters were ever "emasculated". Jokes were made at their expense at times, but that's not the same thing.
I think this movie had bad marketing. Because the makers were bragging about how they like to emasculate males, it turned fantasy fans off, including me, were expecting another Rings of Power, Blood Origin or Willow. I eventually went to see the movie after seeing reviews and I loved it. It was nothing like the terrible shows I mentioned above. But I can see other people wouldn't even give it the chance it deserves.
I haven't seen the movie yet but did they actually make male characters weak and empower female characters? I've seen the "female warrior" in the trailer and I feel kinda iffy for the movie.
@@hoangkienvu7572 No I'd say they handled power fairly equally - None of them are really 'weak' or too OP, they just handle fights in different ways that feels natural for their personalities. The most skilled fighter of them are the Paladin guy, and then Holga (the female warrior as you put it) comes close second.
Yees it had a bad marketing. I thought it was something like maze runner film. And thought just another one of those movies.
@@hoangkienvu7572 late reply but if what i would like to say. feminism done right. they didnt de-masuclate the men and made thing look bad to promp up woman. The main villian is a powerful female, your man ass kickers in the party are both females. the males are still competent and have a place in the party they just don't do hand to hand fighting like the woman.
Small-stakes _can_ and has worked. They're what used to set the _Ant-Man_ movies apart from the rest of the MCU, with Scott Lang just being a guy who wanted to be a good dad for his daughter, even after he messed up. I haven't seen it, but _Ant-Man 3_ takes this small-stakes guy, and pits him against _Avengers_ - level stakes, while also robbing him of chances to really do anything that matters, because the real acts had to be done by the women of the team. The writers completely forgot where and how Scott works best as a character, but the biggest problem with the film seems to be encapsulated in the latest version of his daughter basically going "yeah, you saved half of all of existence, but what good have you done lately?" It's not endearing. Small stakes work well if you can make them matter to the audience. Previous _Ant-Man_ entries did that by making us care about the family.
So what's the reason for the audience to care about what's at stake in _Honour Among Thieves_ ? What makes it a compelling watch?
This movie is not a story about a group of adventurers, it is reenactment of a bunch of friends' D&D campaign. It is not a movie for everyone, but for someone who have been playing D&D for over a decade I enjoy the attention to details and easter eggs in this movie over those in Mario.
To me, John Wick 4 can be summarize as "see Keanu Reeves shot someone for a fourth time", didn't really have that draw for me.
The magic cuffs were used on the heroes earlier in the film during the maze sequence so it didnt come out of nowhere
Counterspell was mentioned in the backstory sequence but the sorcerer said that he wasnt strong enough to counter the time stop spell then
The magic cuffs were used on the heroes, but the daughter suddenly being in the middle of the fight to slap cuffs on her (that she herself didn't have) was bullshit; and the impromptu decision by every character to pretend that the time-stop spell went off was stupid (and the daughter taking advantage of that impromptu performance was even worse.)
The scene was bad writing all around, even if the mcguffins and such were introduced earlier in the movie, their usage was poorly written.
@@frostmagemariithey stated immediately after that they planned to pretend to be time stopped, yes it's a bit of a retcon but I don't think it's completely out of left field for them to have given her the cuffs considering they knew who they were up against
@@frostmagemariiit wasn't an impromptu decision, they made a plan off-screen. Everything used was set up earlier in the movie. Edgan literally tells her that it was their plan the whole time
The use of the cuffs were perfectly fine. As mentioned, the plan was hatched on the boat. How is this even an issue?
@@frostmagemarii I feel like you didn't actually watch the movie. They gave the daughter the cuff and had her use her invisibility necklace, and the time stop was counterspelled. They then literally explained their plan to the villain's face before killing her.
Honestly, one of the greatest movies I've seen in the last few years. So freaking sad to see it fail.
Cinema is pretty well dead at this point to me. Movies this good fail while Disney just keeps spewing out trash.
@@snoop4470new product after new product. This movie did suprised me. It had no right to be such a good time
I'm not sad. I'm happy it failed. Serves WOTC and Hasbro right.
@@Usernamesdontmatter1 Ik they made shitty choices (and if possible I want them to stub their toe everytime they walk past a table)
But what I feel most sad about is the people who worked on the film, especially the writers.
It's always funny watching this channel's reviews and reading the comments: "OMG, cinema is dead, people are idiots, this movie is amazing" when the video presents very consistent reasons why these movies failed
Shame it didn't do well I totally loved this movie. It was flawed with the usual trappings but I found it so much fun. Chris Pine is a master of this kind of role. The entire cast was great and the practical effects won me over as well. Low-key made me wish I knew more about DnD to get more of the in-jokes and references.
I imagine now that because of Baldur's gate 3 introduced allot more new fans to the world of the forgotten realms and D&D in general, another movie would make allot more money.
Seeing this movie while recognizing all the references, powers and even items displayed in this movie, elevates it's entertainment value greatly.
If Hollywood rolls another time on a new D&D movie, it'll do so with advantage.
The biggest thing this movie had going against it is the IP itself. I think for most it felt unapproachable unless you were already familiar with Dungeons & Dragons. The fact that it had an extended title only added to this, as it felt like maybe this was a sequel to a franchise you missed the first movie of. Turns out it was a great movie even if not familiar with in-depth IP but not a lot of people were willing to give it the same chance.
It gut wrenches me to see that there is a above 90% approval of this movie agreed upon by both Critics and the Audience knowing a contributing part of its issue of not doing well financially was Hasbro and Wotc knee capping it it as it came through the theaters doors with the stunts carp they tried to pull.
I seriously hope though that they still make more DnD Movies with the love and charm this one had. It was a thrill to watch this feeling like it was the imagination inside the players head what they were seeing on their table top or what the DM was describing. It felt like a live action representation of a fanatic one shot.
Yeah unfortunately I think the losses on this one probably put a stop to anymore in this continuity, which really sucks.
This movie still had plenty ambition
More than any game adaptation ever made
Such a shame WOTC shot themselves in the foot after degrading the player base's good will for the past few years.
Except maybe Arcane :)
Wow wow more than any RIGHT NOW maybe and only in movies.
Plenty of movies were 10 times more ambitious as game adaptation (Final fantasy for instance who litteraly ruined Square which had to fuse with Enix)
Careful with the superlatives (Americans do it all the time)
Ambition doesn't make something good.
@@Toto-95 Be careful with the generalizations if you're gonna warn someone else about being careful with superlatives. I'm guessing the reason you mostly hear Americans do it is because it's mostly Americans you talk to.
This movie was honestly great, genuinely funny and refreshing, I haven't laughed while watching a movie in such a long time, its just a really good laid back movie and its sad knowing that theres a chance it wont get a sequel or we wont see these great characters again
You overlooked one factor social media. Mario was trending because of that one song
While I understand you talking about how there are no consequences, but that is kind of what makes it a D&D movie. You can almost see it as the DM giving them more and more ways to win when they keep messing up.
It's a real shame this movie flopped it was such a fun film and I would have loved to see this get a sequel. It had truly funny characters, a bunch of fun and creative action, and a bunch of really likable main characters. Not a once in a generation film but still really good all the same.
It was too much of a film for "those guys". It's really an DnD session on screen, not movie in itself. But it was a damn good and fun filler DnD session.
This film was a 2 pack of ass trying to be budget GotG. DnD sucks and is hella hard to make fun, tbf.
@@Theeight8bI dunno, I brought some of my non-DND friends out to watch it, and they quite liked the movie.
Obviously, if you get the references you'll enjoy it more, but I don't think the issue was that things were too in-jokey. Rather, it seems like the marketing was pretty bad.
@@snkybrki You know, you right. I watched the second time, and... damn it's good. Like - standalone good. It's just better, if you consider it as DnD session. It's a shame, that it failed, though. I really wish this guys made Rings Of Power.
I actually think the problem was that people really didn't trust this movie to be good because it was based on a "nerdy" table game. At least that wad my expectation when going into the theater eventhough I really enjoyed the movie by the end, and know a lot of people who didn't wanna watch it specifically because of the nerdy IP
It also didn't help the companies involved shot themselves in the foot with their customer base. It was the worst pr crisis in nerd history.
I agree. Although that's a thing with this channel. He doesn't really talk much about the cultural zeitgeist reasons behind which films are successful and which aren't; Filmento tends to operate on the rather idealistic basis that good films are successful and bad films aren't, and if a film fails, it's always because of mistakes in the writing. Because of course that's his specialty, but always explaining it from the perspective of "this movie failed because of these writing flaws" I think is a little naive and misleading. I think brand recognition and cultural reasons outside the actual movie can have a very large impact.
Not really meant as a criticism toward Filmento, the channel focuses specifically on writing and it's damn good at that.
True for me. I was hesitant to see a movie based on a board game. Turned out to be one of my favourite movies despite the IP it's based on
Nerds are into it for a reason. Avoiding it for those reasons seems either close minded or that the individual is too worried by social pressures.
@@professorgames3261 No. It just means that nerds are into it because of a special interest that you might not share. Knowing what you are and aren't interested in has nothing to do with 'social pressure'. It's okay to not be interested in every subculture and subgenre of everything.
Of all the movies that have came out in recent years, this was an absolutely terrific movie!
That article about emasculating men probably hurt it a lot more than people consider. Yes, Pine was a less-than-badass character, but that's because he was playing a bard. In D&D, bards are the second line characters aka support classes like archers or second volley musket-men. Meanwhile, Rodriguez was a barbarian and her literal role was to beat the crap out of everything in front of her. I do agree that the characters were particularly safe and limited in terms of their range of growth. But for a single movie with multiple central characters, is it all that plausible that all the characters can excel?
The Forgotten Realms books (the core source material) for the movie/ literature adaptation of the D&D games are all HUGE stories that are far larger than just one movie. I know this movie lost money, but I truly hope the producers can make a push for a sequel that goes further on all of these ideas.
I don't think he was even emasculated at all. Sure, he wasn't the one beating the enemies up, but he was definitely heroic, played to his own strengths, kept the party working together and wanted to both save his daughter and to fix his mistakes as a father. Plenty of stuff for men to aspire to without having to be a muscly jock.
@@houndofculann1793 The protagonist was clearly shown to be the brains of the operation, yeah.
He wasn't perfect, and early on, was subject to criticism from his party members.. but as the story went on, by the end they all clearly respected and trusted his ability to make plans and improvise on them.
I also noted that Holga's fights were carefully choreographed to show her sometimes having to use clever tactics or tricks to defeat her opponents, rather than always brute forcing her way through, which induce disbelief in the audience. That was good visual storytelling.
They didn't just take fight choreography intended for an actor like Schwarzeneggar in his prime and insert Rodriguez in the role.
This movie was fantastic. I think many of the points you raised as potential problems were actually things that many of us appreciated about it.
I didn't even know the movie existed until after it was out of theaters, and I'd assume marketing wasn't too great.
Plus, wasn't there a huge controversy about Hasbro that made a lot of D&D fans refuse to see it in theaters? I'd be willing to bet that hit the box office numbers hard, especially given how well-received it's been.
I saw this with my fiancée who is not a massive movie-goer. With the owlbear smashing the witch at the end she said "didn't the hulk do that in avengers?" and that kind of says it all
I saw this with my D&D group on my birthday. It was one of my favorite movie-watching experiences. Seeing a bunch of characters, groups, monsters and locations that we had read about, then used for our own stories was incredible. It felt like we'd found something that our own stories could be a part of (which they were from the beginning). It felt like this world was bigger than our group but also felt like our group (and others) could have our own awesome stories in it.
Imagine hating yourself enough to actually be part of a DnD group unironically. Not even LoL players hate themselves that much.
@@RedSunUnderParadise oh man it's so great! I recommend giving it a shot 😃
@@elijahgemmill2000
Welp, wish me luck, then.
bruhh, when they mentioned triboar trail I was like, "yoooooo, I played there before!" 😂
burned something like a dozen orcs with a single fireball there
As a fan I went to see it in the theatre bc I wanted it to do well. We as consumers can send messages to studios but we have to show up and support good art. Our society is cynical and adrift and this is a symptom of that.
I think Hasbro/WoTC's shenanigans probably played a big part in it not doing better. That's what kept me out of the theater at least..
I skipped it because I didn't want it to do well. Bragging about emasculating the male characters being "funny and fresh" was an instant nope from me. That hasn't been fresh for over a decade.
I loved this movie. My fav movie of 2023 so far.
Totally not a CCP bot or anything. Nope.
I think you don't understand concept of this movie? He had to punch a guy because sorcerer main atribute is Charisma, which is force of personality, after gaining confidence his charisma increased then he was able to use helmet.
Also story is written by Dungeon Master, and you can feel that. Which is concept of movie. When DM runs a game and player for example destroy bridge, DM have to improvise something, for example portal gun. You can feel this game by watching this movie.
Actually, the film flopping had a lot more to do with something the Dungeons and Dragons' company, Wizards of the Coast, did than the current media landscape. Long story short, Wizards has been burning a lot of the community's good will, and then a few months before the film's release date, they decided to piss off their entire customer base by attempting to overturn the OGL 1.0 which basically allowed people to use the rules of Dungeons and Dragons to create their own content, which is why there's a ton of third-party D&D stuff. In exchange, Wizards gets a ton of free adertising and a self-propogating player base. To make matters worse, a leak from an employee at Wizards said that executives not only didn't care about their customer base, but (and I quote), "Sees them as obstacles to their money." Their reasoning for attempting to revoke the OGL 1.0 was purely for greedy reasons, as they felt D&D was "undermonetized", despite it being immensely profitable and popular. Because of this, there was a massive backlash from the community, in which the film was caught in the crossfire. I saw a lot of fans (including myself) getting really excited for the film prior to this incident. It's a shame too because it's actually a good film. Wizards just f'ed around and found out at the worst possible time
Yeah I think this is what probably killed a lot of interest from DnD gamers and the general gaming/nerd community. On top of that though the movie wasn't promoted very well. At least not where I live. I barely saw any advertising for it. A few posters at cinemas, one on a bus and as a trailer for a couple of other movies, that was it.
Watching honor among thieves I felt like it was supposed to be a series instead of a movie. Every 20 minutes it was like a start of a new episode (SPOILERS!) opening - puting together a crew - getting informations - sidequest with paladin - ending. 2 hours was just too short for that story
I believe that whole movie is an reenactment of multiple play session of a group of friends.
The paladin is clearly the DMPC, he gave the same "Im so close to TPK you guys" death stare when we players mess up the elaborate puzzle our DM prepared for the session. Love the way he walk off into the background as the DM stop narrating him once his purpose is served.
@@xengk Supposedly the scene where he walked straight over the rock was improvised. The actor understood his character as, "I'm a righteous paladin, my path is always straight and true, never faltering." When he didn't hear cut, he just walked right over the boulder. Even the director was like, "keep rolling, I want to see what he'll do when he gets to that big rock."
@@Ncyphen Is there a clip or interview for that? That's so funny and cool.
17:02
I watched the movie with my DnD group and there's this friend who doesn't take the game all that seriously and everytime we ran up into an enemy he just threw a potato at it for no reason. When we watched this scene we went crazy 🤣
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves IS my #1 film of the year so far. I went in expecting camp, poor acting and cringe silliness; but instead, I was met with a GORGEOUSLY shot film, incredible costume design, insane visuals and the most charming well-acted cast of heroes and villains I think I've seen in forever from a film. I laughed ALOT, cheered and even teared up watching this film.
I literally had to watch it several times over to find any flaws and if I had to nit-pick it would be the infamous teleporting characters but other than that... I really feel D&D:HAT is a damn there PERFECT film.
Yes I completely agree. It's sooo much fun and awesome. Me and fam r watching it over n over again. Not to mention we started playing DND thanks to it.
For me it is this movie and GotG3 coming out of nowhere and having no reason to be this good.
The scene with the Intellect Devourer had me and my friends (D&D players and DM) laughing in tears at the in joke, while most of the audience were puzzled by our outburst. As players we have meta knowledge at how dangerous these things are, but once they walk passed the party we immediately know what it is implied about this group of characters we are following.
Thanks!
Ok let's be honest one of the reasons why this movie"flopped" was the marketing. " The most Chris pine that ever chris pinest." Seriously no one knew how to market this to anyone
You clearly didn't pay attention to the movie. The magic nullifying armband was gotten from the underground chambers below the maze. Both the sorcerer and druid wore one while in the maze until the druid had hers removed after putting her arm in the gelatenous cube. Before they left to the docks there were probably a dozen more of them with keys.
Their sole mistake was relying completely on the D&D brand instead of catching people's attention.
It's a great movie and I think it accomplished pretty well what it tried to do, which is represent how an actual D&D campaign sorta feels like irl.
Its comedic and laid back tone is an intended fetaure, I believe.
It's unfortunate that just being a good movie doesn't make you money tho.
It also relied too much on prior knowledge about the game for its worldbuilding. Which might have set a lot of people off.
I like your point about "discussing at work to convince them to go see". When I went with friends from work and talked about the movie with other people from work they were all like: "oh but dnd is not my style it's too nerdy" they just shut off their brains and didn't wanna know if it is an enjoyable movie regardless of the setting for them it was just a thing for a very specific type of people.
Unfortunately there could have been 15 amazing new scenes that noone has ever seen and were the most crazy stuff humanity hasa ever seen... It's still nerd stuff and "III am deeeefinitely not a nuuuurd *scuff scuff"
This is one of the few films I loved for it's semplicity as it perfectly represent a DnD campaing.
To me, it's only problem was the release date, I mean, the OGL and the greatest blockbuster in animation hystory didn't help
What does OGL stand for?
@@edschelchang6123 open game license, it's basically what has given people the right to make dnd contents.
Homebrew, kick starter and stuff like that.
Not sure.. I think the WotC/Hasbro boycott was still going on at that time. None of my friends from my D&D group went to see it because of that.
D&D is what I wish ALL blockbusters would strive to be, at the very least -- character-wise, story-wise, stylistically, etcetera....
Not in terms of replication, but effort! D&D, despite being conceptually simple, really did the most with what it had -- no character, scene, or line-of-dialogue left hollow, lacking, or incomplete.
It's really a shame that it bombed. You wouldn't believe my shock at hearing about it! Based on my experience, and my friends' experiences, this movie should have been a hit.
I saw both this and the Mario movie in theaters. They were both fun in their own ways.
One movie offered some innovative amd original scenes, the other cheered at the short bus driving by.
Best fantasy movie we've had for a fair while now. Wasn't perfect, but I actually enjoyed watching it.
What a meh movie. All the best bits were told as flashbacks. Flashback got an awesome battle with a deadly dragon breathing staffing acid, we got an extended scene with a tubby dragon that rolled around a lot. Flashbacks got the sweet loving relationship between the main protagonist and his wife, as well as the daughter with her surrogate mother, we got a couple of shots of hugs, robbing us of the heart of the movie. Flashbacks got the cool heist at the beginning of the movie, which set up the relationship and capabilities of the team, we got lots of ice and waiting for a bird man to walk into the room. Apparently, the best parts of this movie, are in a different movie.
2:03 Nice Tron Reference
Are we not gonna talk about how good his edits have gotten. Nice work
I like the interaction between characters personality, and how they connect each character motivations to agree to work together.
How to say you don't follow Hasbo/WOTC without saying it. The controversy of trying to cancel the DnD OGL had a huge impact too. That and the overprinting and overpowering of magic cards to cash in have been rubbing the DnD fan base wrong.
One last issue: the company that owns D&D, Wizards of the Coast (who is owned by Hasbro, and directly suffers for it), had a massive boycott of their products and services less than two months before the release of "D&D: HAT". I can't imagine having a large portion of your core audience absolutely furious with you is helpful when it comes time to drop into a hotly contested release schedule...
The main character is a Bard or is he a Rogue with Minstrel skills? He doesn't ever cast spells though, but what thief skills is he using?
Great movie, too bad it had to come out RIGHT before the Mario movie
I enjoyed it a lot
Not to mention WOTC doing everything to make their fanbase hate them
Filmento is one of the only few people I'm willing to listen to when it comes to explaining what they mean
See when I saw "failure" in the thumbnail I thought the movie was bad. But I saw fans of DnD praise the film so I thought something must be up and it turns out he was just referring to the box office numbers
Yeah it's a well made movie with lots of thought put into it. Sadly, it was just heavily outshined by both Mario and John Wick and was also an unfortunate casualty from the massive community backlash regarding the D&d franchise.
You can say what you want about this film... but... its not by any meeans a Bad film
Its entertaining
Agreed- I thought it was really good, even surprisingly so. Hopefully the result doesn't discourage studios from taking chances like it.
lol the only reason my dad and I watched the movie was because his colleagues wouldn't stop talking about it
This has been, far and away, my favorite flick of the year so far. It was *WAY* better than anybody thought it would be, and should've gotten way more love (and enough studio confidence to bankroll a 3D release). Sadly, when it was released, I have never seen so many great films at the theater at the same time...Mario, John Wick 4, Renfield, Evil Dead rise, AIR, Antman 3 and Avatar 2 were still hanging around. It was insane, and simply bad timing. Sure, the movie wasn't perfect, but it was a helluva good time, funny, exciting, gorgeous visually... and I think it will find its audience on streaming and become a widely beloved cult classic! You really cant compare this to 7th Son or the first D&D movie.