D&D Movie/TV Could D&D/MtG tv/movies replace Superhero movies?

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The MCU revenue has dropped 50%.

Marvel Movies Accounted for 30% of the Domestic Box Office for 2021 - IGN (Posted: Jan 4, 2022 5:16 pm)

In numbers reported by The Wrap, Marvel's share of the North American box office in 2021 was an astounding 30%.

In 2018, MCU movies claimed 18% of the domestic box office total.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Franchise Box Office History - The Numbers

Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise box office earnings

www.the-numbers.com

Top Lifetime Grosses

www.boxofficemojo.com

The first three MCU movies released last year (in the heart of the pandemic!) are near the bottom of the list of MCU movies in terms of box office. The Spiderman movie, though, is the 3rd highest grossing movie of the entire franchise (and 6th all time)! Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is 11th... 'only' pulling in just shy of a billion dollars worldwide (58th all time).

I think the MCU is doing just fine.

 

[Tonguez]

Weren't there rumors of Disney buying out Hasbro a few years back - back when they got Star Wars and Fox, and seemed just to be on a buying spree?

not really, there was speculation about some of the toy licences (in particular the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Disney Princess and Marvel toys) and creating the Hasbro cinematic universe, but it was just speculation

 

[Hussar]

Hasbro has been trying to break into the "franchise" movie gig for a while now. Transformers, Gi Joe, I'm sure there are others.

This is just the next swing of the cat to see if it will stick. Here's hoping. I would love to see a D&D movie franchise where we get a D&D movie every year or two. Kinda like Bond movies or any other franchise. I don't need a cinematic universe. Just a franchise would make me SUPER happy.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

That because movie theatres are the thing that's dying. Even after the pandemic they stand mostly empty most of the time. People just can't be bothered, and they spend their entertainment funds on streaming instead.

Disney are smart, and getting ahead of the curve.

Tell that to Tom Cruise whose Top Gun Maverick is still making money hand over fist in threatres.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Hasbro is very interested into to create a cinematographic universe.

We don't know if they are going to continue the partnership with Paramount. Maybe not even themself yet.

Children love superheroes, but young adult ask better stories. There is a part of the crowd who don't enjoy superheroes, it is not their cup of tea, but they are willing to watch a fun comedy even if this is about superheroes.

The comingsoon action-live movie is not (only) for the fanbase but for people who is willing to see epic fantasy with some touchs of comedy.

This is not about the genre, but about to produce a right work.

An IP is not enough, it makes a lot of money once but being a bomb or drop in other, even being produced by the same company. Has anybody watch that movie of Conan the barbarian played by (a beardless) Jason Momoa?

To produce an action-live movie set in the current age is easier or cheaper to filming fantasy in the medieval age.

All the cinema studios have tried to find the key to produce blockbusters, but even if they would find this, the audience would change after watching always the same.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Hasbro has been trying to break into the "franchise" movie gig for a while now. Transformers, Gi Joe, I'm sure there are others.

This is just the next swing of the cat to see if it will stick. Here's hoping. I would love to see a D&D movie franchise where we get a D&D movie every year or two. Kinda like Bond movies or any other franchise. I don't need a cinematic universe. Just a franchise would make me SUPER happy.

Transformers succeeded until Michael Bay left. GI Joe failed everytime, I'm not sure why.

D&D and MtG are just so much better set up for Cinematic universes then any other Hasbro property and D&D and MtG are far more profitable then GI Joe and Transformers are right now.

 

[Hussar]

Like I said, I don't think D&D needs or really works as a "cinematic universe". Marvel works that way because you have decades (and many, many decades) of established universe. Same with DC, even though the DCEU is a bit of a shambles right now - but, let's not forget that we've had what, forty, fifty years of DC titles on the small screen in one form or another? Lois and Clark was a thing in the 80's. (90's? I forget now). Smallville and then the CW DC universe has been a success by any measure.

Nothing in D&D compares to that. D&D itself might for recognition, but, any specific setting or whatnot? Not really. They have a LONG way to go to make a "Cinematic Universe". Like I said, a simple franchise a la Transformers or Fast and Furious would make me a perfectly content consumer.

 

[Mort]

Lets get ONE good (or even passable) movie before we talk cinematic universe!

 

[DEFCON 1]

No, they won't. For one simple reason... there aren't enough known D&D / MtG characters with built-in story.

When you adapt most things from a previous source, you are bringing out onto the screen a known quantity of character and usually a known story. This is because of the desire to have a built-in audience already knowledgeable of the subject matter to be your foundation. It's the same reason why we see reboots, or TV series based upon movies or movies based upon TV series-- known characters in known situations for the audience of the original item.

The problem with D&D / MtG or indeed any movie based upon a game... you don't have known quantities. This new D&D movie is like all the other ones... a bunch of newly-created characters that the producers are hoping audiences latch onto, but have no guarantee. For all they know... audiences won't care or buy Chris Pine as a Harper bard, or Michelle Rodriguez as a barbarian... and even if they do, the producers have to hope the audience cares and buys the story that they've created for them. But that's no guarantee either.

When Marvel made the first Iron Man... those of us who knew the character and the stories about the character almost entirely had positive reactions to RDJ playing Tony Stark. The match made too much sense. And then when we heard (and eventually saw) Favreau was adapting Stark's origin story and saw what the Iron Man Mark I armor looked like as it walked through and came out of the caves... we knew that Favreau and his producers truly got the source material and did a really good job adapting it. And then once the movie was released and we saw not only all the nods to the comics but also the very solid and fun story that they adapted from various bits of IM comics history... it all worked out.

For D&D to have that same sort of roadmap to follow, they would have needed to take a "famous" D&D character with a "known" story, and adapted that to the screen. But how many characters like that does D&D have? I mean... isn't Drizzt it? He's like the only one that most D&D players really know, both from backstory and current incarnation. But who else? Maybe Elminster... maybe Wulfgar... maybe the cartoon characters? But even that is stretching it. And as far as a known story... isn't like the Strahd / Ravenloft module the only one with a narrative plotline most D&D players are familiar with that would include enough D&D tropes to make it feel like a D&D movie? What else are they gonna do? Tomb of Horrors? Not as an introductory movie trying to get a "cinematic universe" off the ground they aren't. That's your horror/thriller D&D movie about six films in that only works after all the tropes of D&D movies have been defined and this film screws with them. And even then... you either have to kill off a bunch of characters that other films have introduced to make us care when they die... or create a whole bunch of new characters and just hope against hope that the Saw / Final Destination-esque random murder traps and death become the true "star" of the movie and thus it doesn't matter who the victims are.

Superheroes have the known quantity of characters and story. D&D and MtG do not. And that's why it is exceedingly unlikely they could ever replace the superhero genre in film.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Incredibly unlikely.

Yeah this. It's not going to happen. D&D/MtG movies could, potentially, do decently and make quite a lot of money, F&F-style, but the idea that they're going to be MCU2: Electric Boogaloo is, well, beyond far-fetched and into the realms of "fansy" as Shakespeare might have put it.

You're right about that. That kind of pattern occurs in most formulaic genres that stick too closely to their tropes and don't innovate.

Yup.

DCU movies are in chaos, in part thanks to the antics of Ezra Miller.

Blaming Ezra Miller for the DCU's problems is like blaming the spotters on the Titanic. The reality is, it was a systemic failure (not to get too diverted but the Titanic was "driving dangerously", with bad information, the spotters didn't have the tools to do their jobs, and the safety systems weren't designed with the anticipation of taking a hit like that - among many other factors).

If the DCU management/leadership were remotely function, not a completely bunch of numbskulls (on so many levels) then bad behaviour from one star who hasn't even had a solo film couldn't damage them. I mean, you think if Mark Ruffalo or Chris Pratt suddenly got implicated as a cannibal (y'know, like a certain other Hollywood fellow) that Marvel would be "in chaos"? I don't - and both of them have solo films, even! They'd just kill off the character Poochie-style and move on. The MCU is like a shark not only in that it keeps moving forwards, but also in that it's continually growing new teeth. Every character has some other variant (in some cases literally a Variant) of that character waiting in the wings. They're up-armoured against this.

The MCU is not doing as great as it was for a lot of reasons (becoming "boring" being one, repetition and overfamiliarity will do that), but the DCU has been a screaming car crash of a mess from day 1. The only remotely together films they've put out in the last decade have been Aquaman and Shazam (of all people! The two most laughable/embarrassing/least-known "major" DC heroes), and I guess the Gunn-helmed Suicide Squad stuff. All of which is wildly tonally different (though notable all kind of more fun/colourful than the Synder/Nolan stuff - both of whom are good movie-makers but haven't always hit it out of the park with Supers). Oh I guess the new Batman was also pretty good, but was another entirely different tone, and seems to be set in a separate universe.

When Marvel made the first Iron Man... those of us who knew the character and the stories about the character almost entirely had positive reactions to RDJ playing Tony Stark. The match made too much sense. And then when we heard (and eventually saw) Favreau was adapting Stark's origin story and saw what the Iron Man Mark I armor looked like as it walked through and came out of the caves... we knew that Favreau and his producers truly got the source material and did a really good job adapting it.

Spot-on. And those people (er... including me) evangelised about Iron Man and how it looked like a good movie being "done right".

But yeah as you say, who in D&D has that? Drizzt kinda but he's also a figure of fun. Dragonlance kinda, but you have two ornery and kind of silly people in charge of it, who would, no doubt, want to be mess around with and have public opinions on it. Annnnnd that's about it? What are we going to do, The Prism Pentad?

I would definitely watch a Saw/Cube-style deal with The Tomb of Horrors but I don't think that'll ever actually happen sadly.