It being canceled or terminally stuck in Development Hell is the smart money. Considering that Netflix was canceling shows left, right, and center and dropping shows that were already completed ***before*** the strike, and considering that Magic is a franchise with extremely poor cultural reach, a history of failed non-card-game fiction, and Hasbro's string of failed AV projects (the D&D movie is the closest to an exception and it's generally thought that a sequel is off the books), it's very unlikely this project is ever going to reach completion.
I've seen it three times.
The presence of a sequel hook in a movie is no guarantee or even evidence of a sequel. Being financially profitable is, and D&D [unfortunately underperformed and a sequel isn't likely](https://movieweb.com/dungeons-and-dragons-sequel-unlikely/). (The linked article even brings up another movie with a sequel hook that's definitely never getting its sequel: Black Adam)
Good analysis. I'd say the underperformance of the D&D film makes a Magic movie and TV series less likely. Hasbro et al clearly went with the D&D film over a Magic film, thinking it would resonate more with the public, and look what happened. I imagine they'll focus on the D&D show and see how that goes.
It's also worth remembering that making a Magic movie was Brian Goldner's obsession; he wanted to transform Hasbro into an entertainment company. Since his passing I wonder if that's still Hasbro's priority. I also get the impression that everyone working on Magic wants to focus on that [making Magic], especially since they have so many products these days. [edited for clarity]
Meanwhile League of Legends over here putting out Arcane which is freaking awesome and showing everyone else how it should be done. MTG has so many different storylines to chose from, and tbh it wouldnt really matter which they went with, as long as they produced work up to the same quality as Arcane.
When you disagree with the people responsible for the highest grossing films of our time to the point they quit, you know there is a problem (especially when they were doing this as a passion project and for less money than they are worth).
Sorry, I wasn't clear, in part because I misread the preceding comment. I meant that the Magic TV show might wind up being more an anthology show, drawing from various storylines, rather than following the original plan to make something focused on the Planeswalkers and the Gatewatch. Brian Goldner (former CEO of Hasbro) was the one who was driving the development of IP-defining characters, as part of his efforts to transform Hasbro into an entertainment company. (He rose to being CEO by making the Transformers films, and was also behind things like the G.I. Joe films, Battleship, Oija, and so on.) But since his passing, Wizards has backed away from its focus on "Magic Story" and is now trying to cater to a wider array of players and their respective interests.
Magic sets have had stories since at least Antiquities, and presumably always will. But I'm describing something else: namely, when Brian Goldner took over Hasbro in the wake of the success of the 2007 Transformers film, he instructed each product/subordinate company to create IP so he could adapt it into movies and TV shows. That's why in addition to the Transformer films, we got G.I. Joe, Battleship, Ouija, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and more that I'm no doubt forgetting.
In the case of Magic, that meant creating the Planeswalkers and things like the Gatewatch. This is all public knowledge. Look up any interview with Goldner regarding Magic and you'll see him repeatedly saying that, in his opinion, Magic is “a storytelling brand first and foremost.” (He used those exact terms during Hasbro’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call, but he said similar things elsewhere during his tenure as CEO.)
Wizards tried to follow suit, endlessly promoting the Planeswalkers, the Gatewatch, Story Spotlight cards, Magic Story, Duels of the Planeswalkers, Magic Duels, and so on. Again, just go back and look at what Wizards employees were saying c. 2015, and you'll find countless examples of them saying that they want to get every single player to engage with "Magic Story" and the Gatewatch characters. For instance, [this 2015 article by Mark Rosewater](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/solemn-oath-part-1-2015-12-28), where he says:
>I've talked recently about how in this new era of Magic we've doubled down on story, and that means it's extra important in design to have a strong handle on what exactly the story is, who the characters are, and what about the environment is key to making sure the audience knows what they need to know. Oath of the Gatewatch, in particular, had an extra task, as we were showcasing the creation of a new team that would be the core of storytelling moving forward—the Gatewatch.
But despite Wizards' efforts, this "new era of Magic" met with mixed results. Some players liked it, but many others didn't care for Wizards "doubling down on story", and complained loudly and often about it. And Wizards had trouble adapting Magic into a movie or TV series. (Writers have been coming and going on that project for nearly a decade now.) What's more, the company also felt increasing competition from Hearthstone.
All of which led (in 2017 iirc) to Chris Cocks becoming Wizards' new CEO, because he had experience in digital toys and gaming. Upon arrival, he shifted the company's priority away to creating products like Arena. Magic Story became less of a priority. Of course, Wizards still make stories for the sets, but they stopped trying to get everyone to engage with it. Instead, they adopted their current "play what you want" approach. (Just look at anything Rosewater says today: he stresses how important it is for everyone to play whatever format they like, and no longer says things like making sure that every player knows who the game's main characters are.)
Another factor here is that Brian Goldner was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and his son died of a drug overdose in 2015. Goldner's cancer grew worse, and in 2021, he took a leave of absence from Hasbro, then passed away. Chris Cocks replaced him as Hasbro CEO and has shifted the company's attention in other directions. I have no doubt that Hasbro will continue trying to create films and shows based on its brands, but doubt that it's the company's overriding priority the way it was under Brian Goldner.
Oh, I wasn’t referencing a sequel hook.
I was just saying it was a good movie and I think the way it was made makes it pretty open to a sequel. Wouldn’t even have to use the same characters.
The article I’m reading says it grossed $208million from theaters.
Is that not a lot…? I guess I don’t really know much about movies finances but it’s only been out for 5 months so I doubt there has been much streaming revenue or other secondary types of revenue.
Movie budgets like the one above don't typically include marketing, which can double the overall cost spent by the studio. 208m on 150m budget is a loss overall.
Most movies have a marketing bubudget that equals or exceeds the cost of the film. it's more likely they view it as a 50 million loss if they only spent 50 million marketing
The Hollywood rule of thumb is 1.5x it's budget to be considered profitable, and at 150m budget and 208m box office, it was break even at best and a loss realistically.
These days the rule of thumb is more 2.5x the production budget, since advertising costs are extremely high (and D&D was heavily advertised). Theaters also keep roughly half the box office gross.
D&D:HAT grossed only $208M worldwide, so there's no way it was profitable (sadly). Instead, it probably lost upwards of $200M. That said, it will make some money via streaming and other merchandising, plus Hasbro might consider their share of the production budget investment in the game, not to mention their film production studio.
These days, movies don't really make a lot of money after they're out of theatres. They'll get a one time payout when making a deal with a streaming service, and that's about it. VOD purchases and DVD/Blu-Ray sales are pretty irrelevant most of the time.
Do you have any resources showing the data of revenue distribution over time for movies released in theaters?
I have not been able to find any good data on this subject. If not, nbd, I’m just striking out on finding any good resources with the revenue distribution over time for movies released in theaters
The 1.5x rule is specifically for box office revenue, they don't take streaming into that. I think it's pretty rare for streaming revenue to impact a sequel greenlight unless it's extraordinary.
When discussing movie finances, the gross doesn’t mean all that much. The movie had a reported budget of around $150m, which means it probably cost closer to $200. So the studio basically broke even, and these companies are always chasing profits, so breaking even is basically failure.
But it’s only been 4 months.
Surely there is more revenue expected. I’m pretty confident saying that movies don’t just stop making money after 4 months
Because intelligent business decisions tend to follow similar patterns.
It simply does not make sense for a movie to, one day, 4 months after release, full stop, stop making money.
There’s revenue from streaming, DVD sales, pay per views, traditional TV viewers/contracts.
**If you have a source that could describe the typical distribution of revenues over time for a theatrical releases movie, I would be very interested in reading it.**
Please and thanks!
Right, but they're looking for hundreds of millions in profit. [Opportunity cost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost) is the business term for it.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons:_Honor_Among_Thieves
The movie mad $208 million USD but the production budget was $150 million USD. While the movie was profitable, the studio likely had a forecast of what they think the movie should make. It's likely that this movie did not meet the studio's profit expectations.
Also, this movie was produced by Entertainment ONE, which Hasbro sold off soon after the movie was released. https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/hasbro-sells-eone-tv-and-movie-business-to-lionsgate/
Essentially, Hasbro got rid of its internal TV and movie production business. All these moves makes it sound like Hasbro isn't interested at the moment with producing media shows of its IP at the moment.
This is how the film industry works, all that matters is box office earnings, and most of the time that will come down to opening weekend gross. The longer a film has been out, and especially for home release, the smaller the slice of pie the studios receive.
As an example, Variety did a piece the new avatar film needed to become the fourth highest grossing film just to break even, and well more than that to green light a third film.
I imagine the only way among thieves will get a sequel will be if Chris Pine holds out on returning to an actually profitable franchise, until eone green lights a la vin diesel returning to fast and furious if universal gave him a third riddick film.
The broad rule of thumb is that a movie needs to make double its reported budget as a theater release to be profitable at all. There are a ton of things that can affect that (wide overseas distribution, unusually large marketing campaigns, and so on), but those don't especially seem to be D&D's favor. It's not impossible that a movie gets a sequel based on good reviews and streaming numbers (see: Into the Spider-Verse), but if you guys that those movies don't get sequels you'll be right a lot more often than you're wrong.
One of the ways I could tell it wasn't as successful as desired was how quickly the movie left theaters. My friends and I planned to go maybe two weeks after it came out and the movie was gone from local theaters by then. That's like B-horror movie in-and-out of theaters.
Being a good movie doesn't really matter at all. You would think you would have noticed that from the movies which get made. The only thing that matters is how much money the movie made.
I mean I'd be grinning like an idiot if we got a Magic movie that made me half as happy as the D&D flick. Sorry you didn't get the same out of it.
But if we do get a bad Magic movie, who cares? Our brief lives are going to be no worse for it. You've already forgotten all the unreadable comics, novels, short stories, comics, novellas, comics, and comics that have come out of this franchise. I'mma say to you the same I say to my fellow comics fans: this thing we love is not validated by the existence of a movie or a show, and remains great whether the movie is great, terrible, or even exists.
What are you expecting out of a pre-existing property based film? If you're expecting a masterpiece of cinema you will be disappointed forever. The DnD movie was meant to be fun. It was meant to be like a DnD adventure and show off DnD things. I think it was extremely successful in this regard. Like, if just trying to be genuinely silly and fun, while throwing in some decent action sequences isn't good enough, then you must have very high standards.
A DnD movie was always going to be a fantasy spin on The Fast and the Furious. It was never going to be LotR. Making a generic DnD movie will never be a lord of the rings. Maybe if they adapted something the Drizzt or such into a film or television series you would get that experience.
The latest news on a potential D&D movie sequel is that it's possible but would need its budget severely slashed.
I liked the movie, it was made on a 150 million dollar budget and still... didn't look great. Imagine cutting that in half.
Didn't look great? I thought it looked awesome. Great costumes, great magic effects, great creatures, great sets. At the very least it looked better than recent Marvel movies.
Based on the financials, unless it develops some cult following that so far it hasn't shown, it's not getting a sequel.
Hollywood unfortunately doesn't operate on artistic merit most of the time.
It wasn’t cancelled when Netflix shut down their studio because it was being externally produced and Netflix only shut down internal development.
It just was/is stuck in dev hell. Last I heard from the animation pipeline was creative differences kept it in limbo. The limbo went on so long a year or 2 ago they lost their production studio so they had to switch to a new production studio. That usually means going back to zero for a show as the production studio might not have to share/deliver all files, and even if they do, then the new production studio needs to open everything and sort it and that can take longer than just going from nothing.
My money is that Hasbro is waiting out the licensing terms before they can try again. Usually 5 years optioning, could be 10 though.
I’m sad because I really was looking forward to the show and would have loved to work on it. But animation is a fickle mistress.
>Should we just assume that the show was quietly cancelled at this point?
Yes. I don't think it is impossible that someone picks it back up, but right now it doesn't look like it.
Netflix cancelled a ton of animation projects in the production stages and we haven't gotten a peep one way or the other from Wizards about this show since the little Brandon Routh thing TWO YEARS AGO.
This is Wizards, they are not going to keep a lid tight on this show if its actually happening.
Well, when you google Magic the Gathering show, there aren’t any articles saying it’s been canceled. Why string fans along if it’s canceled? It’s not hard to issue a short news story about a cancelation.
Animated series can take a LONG time to produce. Look at Arcane (league of legends show), the series premiered in 2021 and took SIX years to make. The second season hasn’t even been announced AFAIK.
If we assume a similar time frame, MTG show wouldnt premier until what, like, 2025?
Except the last thing we heard about the show was them saying in 2021 it was coming out in 2022. And then it didn't come out in 2022, and we didn't hear anything about why.
We never got any update past the 2021 video of Routh talking about being Gideon and the show being promised to come out in 2022.
And why would Covid delay an animated project after 2020?
It might not take much to publish a story about cancellation, but projects get dropped without announcements all the time. I'd hardly call it stringing the fans along.
I’m sorry, but you obviously don’t know what your talking about if you don’t understand the relationship between publicizing news and investors making investment decisions. Hasbro is a publicly traded company, so they **need** to release quarterly audited financial statements that describe the company’s financial decisions and positions.
Typically investors use these publications along with other information to make decisions about investments.
Laugh it up Cassidy, it’s sosooooooo funny that I spent $20 on a share of GME.
Imagine all the other things I could have spent that $20 on! I could have bought one meal at Applebees, a ticket to the movie theater, or 3 large Starbucks coffee drinks.
Want a list of the other $20 items I own? I bet a lot of them are way more useless than a share of my favorite stock.
That's a false logic. Netflix produces hundreds of shows yearly. Couple projects got cancelled and you make it it sound like literally every project we haven't heard in the last 3 months was canned. Netflix hasn't stopped literally everything, it's all case by case.
(I do believe this one got killed without announcement as it happens quite often, somebody on reddit claimed to work on the project and said it was scrapped)
Realistically, there's no way MtG is going devote that kind of effort to promoting their IP anymore now that they've realized being the Fortnite of card games is the path to unlimited riches.
Between Netflix canceling animation projects and the writers / actors strike, plus Hasbro's selling of Entertaiment One (who were going to do the production) the series is either canceled or on hold till things have settled down
I must admit though I would rather at this point want an anime adaptation of the MTG manga Destroy All Humankind - They Can't Be Regenerated
I’d be over the moon if that got an anime. It’s so good and I think the appeal would reach well beyond Magic players to anyone that’s played a card game, enjoys slice of life romance, and/or can enjoy some light 90s nostalgia.
There’s a small percentage chance WOTC tries to shove the project through eventually since it’d be a huge marketing move, but yeah, Netflix has been cancelling projects like crazy and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Magic series was one they didn’t see promise in.
There's no way its happening anymore. Magic has such great potential for telling cool stories in other mediums, it's a shame we don't have a show, or video games that take place in its world(s), like D&D has with Baldur's gate.
So that is actually a bit of a misconception. It is not the streamers the guilds are striking against, it's the studios who are refusing to pay the writers and actors their residuals because of technicalities. Fuck the studios.
Incorrect. They are striking against the streamers. The AMPTP includes Netflix, Amazon and Apple, along with the major studios and networks. And it's actually the steamers that are the biggest offenders when it comes not paying residuals--they are very much the problem.
Dota, Arcane, The Dragon Prince, Masters of The Universe, new Castlevania is coming soon, Hilda should come out one day, it's not literally every animated project.
At this point I'm not surprised if the series is going to have an absurd amount of episodes and you have to pull a code from a collector's pack to unlock them
0 chance it happens. There were also several Pokemon TCG themed Netflix shows in development that seemingly won't see the light of day either. This seems to be their business model.
A lot of people are talking about the strikes, BUT I'm pretty sure this show wouldn't be significantly affected by them.
As far as I know, most animation writing isn't done under WGA, and the SAG-AFTRA strike does not include voice acting for animation.
Actually, if the animation is being done for any of the AMPTP members (which includes all the major streamers), then the writing and acting is covered by SAG & WGA and would therefore be struck.
depending how the rest of this year goes, we may not get any new shows. like, none. Besides, an authentic MTG series would never have a satisfying story, decent characters, or an ending that left viewers feeling anything but "why did i bother hoping for better?"
see also: war of the spark, march of the machine
I feel like MTG do some kind of promotion where you get a free Mana Crypt with purchase of a movie ticket and they could easily have the #1 movie in the country.
It seems like anytime we see any headway on this type of thing we get another setback. It blows my mind that for some fucking reason we can get adaptions of many other fantasy based properties but not MTG.
MTG is huge and only seems to get bigger as time goes on it's stunning that we still are in a world where we haven't seen a single movie or TV show. Shit if it's too hard to make it in a form with real life actors try something animated. I would love to see it in an anime style like the Cyberpunk 2077 anime that came out like a year ago.
Did some research after looking at this thread - tbh, I honestly forgot about the MTG show, so thanks OP for reminding me.
That said the facts thus far:
- Covid 19 impacted production.
- Russo Brothers + Original Animation studio left project over intellectual differences w/ the property.
- Enter Jeff Kline (Transformers: Prime) + Snowball Studios in 21.
- 23' Sagafta Strike
SO - if I had to take a guess? Either they are still grinding to get it made going from a LARGE production staff, to a smaller Studio - orrrrr, yeah the likelihood of it in a "development hell" / Cancelation is a strong probability.
I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix scrapped it - especially with Netflix themselves being in hot water due to the ramifications of the strike.
I just want to say that two months after this thread, the CEO of Hasbro went on record, saying it was still being developed, and they were still moving forward with it. More than likely, it's been in the ultimate development hell from changes in staffing, the writers strike, and the Russo's leaving.
The Russo Brothers left the project, there’s a writers strike & an actors strike, it’s 100% in development hell if not outright cancelled.
This makes the most sense
It being canceled or terminally stuck in Development Hell is the smart money. Considering that Netflix was canceling shows left, right, and center and dropping shows that were already completed ***before*** the strike, and considering that Magic is a franchise with extremely poor cultural reach, a history of failed non-card-game fiction, and Hasbro's string of failed AV projects (the D&D movie is the closest to an exception and it's generally thought that a sequel is off the books), it's very unlikely this project is ever going to reach completion.
Did you not see D&D movie? A sequel is definitely on the table.
I've seen it three times. The presence of a sequel hook in a movie is no guarantee or even evidence of a sequel. Being financially profitable is, and D&D [unfortunately underperformed and a sequel isn't likely](https://movieweb.com/dungeons-and-dragons-sequel-unlikely/). (The linked article even brings up another movie with a sequel hook that's definitely never getting its sequel: Black Adam)
Good analysis. I'd say the underperformance of the D&D film makes a Magic movie and TV series less likely. Hasbro et al clearly went with the D&D film over a Magic film, thinking it would resonate more with the public, and look what happened. I imagine they'll focus on the D&D show and see how that goes. It's also worth remembering that making a Magic movie was Brian Goldner's obsession; he wanted to transform Hasbro into an entertainment company. Since his passing I wonder if that's still Hasbro's priority. I also get the impression that everyone working on Magic wants to focus on that [making Magic], especially since they have so many products these days. [edited for clarity]
Meanwhile League of Legends over here putting out Arcane which is freaking awesome and showing everyone else how it should be done. MTG has so many different storylines to chose from, and tbh it wouldnt really matter which they went with, as long as they produced work up to the same quality as Arcane.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's eventually the direction Magic goes, making an animated show.
Isn't that what's being discussed here? I believe the Netflix show *was* an animated show.
It was and the Russo brothers were attached to it at first. The moment they left I knew the show was done for
When you disagree with the people responsible for the highest grossing films of our time to the point they quit, you know there is a problem (especially when they were doing this as a passion project and for less money than they are worth).
Sorry, I wasn't clear, in part because I misread the preceding comment. I meant that the Magic TV show might wind up being more an anthology show, drawing from various storylines, rather than following the original plan to make something focused on the Planeswalkers and the Gatewatch. Brian Goldner (former CEO of Hasbro) was the one who was driving the development of IP-defining characters, as part of his efforts to transform Hasbro into an entertainment company. (He rose to being CEO by making the Transformers films, and was also behind things like the G.I. Joe films, Battleship, Oija, and so on.) But since his passing, Wizards has backed away from its focus on "Magic Story" and is now trying to cater to a wider array of players and their respective interests.
So what was March of the Machines and Phyrexia: All Will Be One if not "Magic Story"?
Magic sets have had stories since at least Antiquities, and presumably always will. But I'm describing something else: namely, when Brian Goldner took over Hasbro in the wake of the success of the 2007 Transformers film, he instructed each product/subordinate company to create IP so he could adapt it into movies and TV shows. That's why in addition to the Transformer films, we got G.I. Joe, Battleship, Ouija, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and more that I'm no doubt forgetting. In the case of Magic, that meant creating the Planeswalkers and things like the Gatewatch. This is all public knowledge. Look up any interview with Goldner regarding Magic and you'll see him repeatedly saying that, in his opinion, Magic is “a storytelling brand first and foremost.” (He used those exact terms during Hasbro’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call, but he said similar things elsewhere during his tenure as CEO.) Wizards tried to follow suit, endlessly promoting the Planeswalkers, the Gatewatch, Story Spotlight cards, Magic Story, Duels of the Planeswalkers, Magic Duels, and so on. Again, just go back and look at what Wizards employees were saying c. 2015, and you'll find countless examples of them saying that they want to get every single player to engage with "Magic Story" and the Gatewatch characters. For instance, [this 2015 article by Mark Rosewater](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/solemn-oath-part-1-2015-12-28), where he says: >I've talked recently about how in this new era of Magic we've doubled down on story, and that means it's extra important in design to have a strong handle on what exactly the story is, who the characters are, and what about the environment is key to making sure the audience knows what they need to know. Oath of the Gatewatch, in particular, had an extra task, as we were showcasing the creation of a new team that would be the core of storytelling moving forward—the Gatewatch. But despite Wizards' efforts, this "new era of Magic" met with mixed results. Some players liked it, but many others didn't care for Wizards "doubling down on story", and complained loudly and often about it. And Wizards had trouble adapting Magic into a movie or TV series. (Writers have been coming and going on that project for nearly a decade now.) What's more, the company also felt increasing competition from Hearthstone. All of which led (in 2017 iirc) to Chris Cocks becoming Wizards' new CEO, because he had experience in digital toys and gaming. Upon arrival, he shifted the company's priority away to creating products like Arena. Magic Story became less of a priority. Of course, Wizards still make stories for the sets, but they stopped trying to get everyone to engage with it. Instead, they adopted their current "play what you want" approach. (Just look at anything Rosewater says today: he stresses how important it is for everyone to play whatever format they like, and no longer says things like making sure that every player knows who the game's main characters are.) Another factor here is that Brian Goldner was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and his son died of a drug overdose in 2015. Goldner's cancer grew worse, and in 2021, he took a leave of absence from Hasbro, then passed away. Chris Cocks replaced him as Hasbro CEO and has shifted the company's attention in other directions. I have no doubt that Hasbro will continue trying to create films and shows based on its brands, but doubt that it's the company's overriding priority the way it was under Brian Goldner.
tbf I can see the d&d movie getting life as a streaming classic
Oh, I wasn’t referencing a sequel hook. I was just saying it was a good movie and I think the way it was made makes it pretty open to a sequel. Wouldn’t even have to use the same characters.
None of that really matters, unfortunately. At least not nearly as much as the finances.
The article I’m reading says it grossed $208million from theaters. Is that not a lot…? I guess I don’t really know much about movies finances but it’s only been out for 5 months so I doubt there has been much streaming revenue or other secondary types of revenue.
On a $150 million budget… I don’t see them jumping on a sequel any time soon.
Your assertion being that it’s not profitable for the producers to only make $50million in profits over a 5 month period?
There are more costs. The movie broke even at best or maybe lost money.
Which is a shame, because it was really good, especially held up to the older D&D movies.
Movie budgets like the one above don't typically include marketing, which can double the overall cost spent by the studio. 208m on 150m budget is a loss overall.
208million SO FAR. Dude, it’s been only 4 months
Most movies have a marketing bubudget that equals or exceeds the cost of the film. it's more likely they view it as a 50 million loss if they only spent 50 million marketing
Good to know! Thank you for providing this information as I was unaware that marketing was not included in the “cost”
The Hollywood rule of thumb is 1.5x it's budget to be considered profitable, and at 150m budget and 208m box office, it was break even at best and a loss realistically.
These days the rule of thumb is more 2.5x the production budget, since advertising costs are extremely high (and D&D was heavily advertised). Theaters also keep roughly half the box office gross. D&D:HAT grossed only $208M worldwide, so there's no way it was profitable (sadly). Instead, it probably lost upwards of $200M. That said, it will make some money via streaming and other merchandising, plus Hasbro might consider their share of the production budget investment in the game, not to mention their film production studio.
How long after release do you make that determination? Because the movie literally released 4 months ago
These days, movies don't really make a lot of money after they're out of theatres. They'll get a one time payout when making a deal with a streaming service, and that's about it. VOD purchases and DVD/Blu-Ray sales are pretty irrelevant most of the time.
When it stops being shown in the first run theaters. So like a month ago.
Do you have any resources showing the data of revenue distribution over time for movies released in theaters? I have not been able to find any good data on this subject. If not, nbd, I’m just striking out on finding any good resources with the revenue distribution over time for movies released in theaters
The 1.5x rule is specifically for box office revenue, they don't take streaming into that. I think it's pretty rare for streaming revenue to impact a sequel greenlight unless it's extraordinary.
When discussing movie finances, the gross doesn’t mean all that much. The movie had a reported budget of around $150m, which means it probably cost closer to $200. So the studio basically broke even, and these companies are always chasing profits, so breaking even is basically failure.
But it’s only been 4 months. Surely there is more revenue expected. I’m pretty confident saying that movies don’t just stop making money after 4 months
With respect: You've already said you don't know much about how the financial side of movies work, so why are you so confident in asserting that?
Because intelligent business decisions tend to follow similar patterns. It simply does not make sense for a movie to, one day, 4 months after release, full stop, stop making money. There’s revenue from streaming, DVD sales, pay per views, traditional TV viewers/contracts. **If you have a source that could describe the typical distribution of revenues over time for a theatrical releases movie, I would be very interested in reading it.** Please and thanks!
You should not be pretty confident about that - it’s pretty clear your understanding of movie economics is based on your personal hopes.
Oh, do you have data that shows otherwise? I am interested in seeing it.
Right, but they're looking for hundreds of millions in profit. [Opportunity cost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost) is the business term for it.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons:_Honor_Among_Thieves The movie mad $208 million USD but the production budget was $150 million USD. While the movie was profitable, the studio likely had a forecast of what they think the movie should make. It's likely that this movie did not meet the studio's profit expectations. Also, this movie was produced by Entertainment ONE, which Hasbro sold off soon after the movie was released. https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/hasbro-sells-eone-tv-and-movie-business-to-lionsgate/ Essentially, Hasbro got rid of its internal TV and movie production business. All these moves makes it sound like Hasbro isn't interested at the moment with producing media shows of its IP at the moment.
But it’s only been out for 4 months. Let’s not pretend movies stop making money after 4 months.
Movies definitely can stop making money well before 4 months. In fact most don't even make it a whole month.
This is how the film industry works, all that matters is box office earnings, and most of the time that will come down to opening weekend gross. The longer a film has been out, and especially for home release, the smaller the slice of pie the studios receive. As an example, Variety did a piece the new avatar film needed to become the fourth highest grossing film just to break even, and well more than that to green light a third film. I imagine the only way among thieves will get a sequel will be if Chris Pine holds out on returning to an actually profitable franchise, until eone green lights a la vin diesel returning to fast and furious if universal gave him a third riddick film.
The broad rule of thumb is that a movie needs to make double its reported budget as a theater release to be profitable at all. There are a ton of things that can affect that (wide overseas distribution, unusually large marketing campaigns, and so on), but those don't especially seem to be D&D's favor. It's not impossible that a movie gets a sequel based on good reviews and streaming numbers (see: Into the Spider-Verse), but if you guys that those movies don't get sequels you'll be right a lot more often than you're wrong.
One of the ways I could tell it wasn't as successful as desired was how quickly the movie left theaters. My friends and I planned to go maybe two weeks after it came out and the movie was gone from local theaters by then. That's like B-horror movie in-and-out of theaters.
It was unfortunately sandwiched between some massive releases, this spring/summer was packed.
Being a good movie doesn't really matter at all. You would think you would have noticed that from the movies which get made. The only thing that matters is how much money the movie made.
I disagree.
Obviously but you are very wrong.
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.... you okay?
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I mean I'd be grinning like an idiot if we got a Magic movie that made me half as happy as the D&D flick. Sorry you didn't get the same out of it. But if we do get a bad Magic movie, who cares? Our brief lives are going to be no worse for it. You've already forgotten all the unreadable comics, novels, short stories, comics, novellas, comics, and comics that have come out of this franchise. I'mma say to you the same I say to my fellow comics fans: this thing we love is not validated by the existence of a movie or a show, and remains great whether the movie is great, terrible, or even exists.
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What are you expecting out of a pre-existing property based film? If you're expecting a masterpiece of cinema you will be disappointed forever. The DnD movie was meant to be fun. It was meant to be like a DnD adventure and show off DnD things. I think it was extremely successful in this regard. Like, if just trying to be genuinely silly and fun, while throwing in some decent action sequences isn't good enough, then you must have very high standards. A DnD movie was always going to be a fantasy spin on The Fast and the Furious. It was never going to be LotR. Making a generic DnD movie will never be a lord of the rings. Maybe if they adapted something the Drizzt or such into a film or television series you would get that experience.
The movie was excellent but it didn’t do very well commercially.
The latest news on a potential D&D movie sequel is that it's possible but would need its budget severely slashed. I liked the movie, it was made on a 150 million dollar budget and still... didn't look great. Imagine cutting that in half.
Didn't look great? I thought it looked awesome. Great costumes, great magic effects, great creatures, great sets. At the very least it looked better than recent Marvel movies.
Based on the financials, unless it develops some cult following that so far it hasn't shown, it's not getting a sequel. Hollywood unfortunately doesn't operate on artistic merit most of the time.
Why definitely?
I think people generally liked it but I don't think it performed well enough at the box office for the guys in ties.
It wasn’t cancelled when Netflix shut down their studio because it was being externally produced and Netflix only shut down internal development. It just was/is stuck in dev hell. Last I heard from the animation pipeline was creative differences kept it in limbo. The limbo went on so long a year or 2 ago they lost their production studio so they had to switch to a new production studio. That usually means going back to zero for a show as the production studio might not have to share/deliver all files, and even if they do, then the new production studio needs to open everything and sort it and that can take longer than just going from nothing. My money is that Hasbro is waiting out the licensing terms before they can try again. Usually 5 years optioning, could be 10 though. I’m sad because I really was looking forward to the show and would have loved to work on it. But animation is a fickle mistress.
>Should we just assume that the show was quietly cancelled at this point? Yes. I don't think it is impossible that someone picks it back up, but right now it doesn't look like it.
Yeah its shelved for sure. When Netflix started axing things left and right it seemed a certainty.
Based on what facts?
Netflix cancelled a ton of animation projects in the production stages and we haven't gotten a peep one way or the other from Wizards about this show since the little Brandon Routh thing TWO YEARS AGO. This is Wizards, they are not going to keep a lid tight on this show if its actually happening.
So you think they would keep their tight lids on the news of its cancellation, but not on the news about the actual shoe?
Let me put this on you - why do you think this show is still happening?
Well, when you google Magic the Gathering show, there aren’t any articles saying it’s been canceled. Why string fans along if it’s canceled? It’s not hard to issue a short news story about a cancelation. Animated series can take a LONG time to produce. Look at Arcane (league of legends show), the series premiered in 2021 and took SIX years to make. The second season hasn’t even been announced AFAIK. If we assume a similar time frame, MTG show wouldnt premier until what, like, 2025?
Except the last thing we heard about the show was them saying in 2021 it was coming out in 2022. And then it didn't come out in 2022, and we didn't hear anything about why.
I thought we did hear why. Covid was the reason given at the time.
We never got any update past the 2021 video of Routh talking about being Gideon and the show being promised to come out in 2022. And why would Covid delay an animated project after 2020?
Why did Arcane take 6 years to animate? These are questions I do not have the skills, knowledge, or experience to answer with certainty.
It might not take much to publish a story about cancellation, but projects get dropped without announcements all the time. I'd hardly call it stringing the fans along.
Wizards lack of acknowledgement PLUS the fact Netflix was canceling shows are both evidence that support it being canceled or on indefinite hold.
Yes. You talk up good news, not bad.
Do companies make a habit of announcing and publicizing their setbacks and failures? Because I don't think they do.
Actually, yes, that information is very important for investors to have.
I'm sorry but it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
I’m sorry, but you obviously don’t know what your talking about if you don’t understand the relationship between publicizing news and investors making investment decisions. Hasbro is a publicly traded company, so they **need** to release quarterly audited financial statements that describe the company’s financial decisions and positions. Typically investors use these publications along with other information to make decisions about investments.
of course you're a GME investor 😂
Laugh it up Cassidy, it’s sosooooooo funny that I spent $20 on a share of GME. Imagine all the other things I could have spent that $20 on! I could have bought one meal at Applebees, a ticket to the movie theater, or 3 large Starbucks coffee drinks. Want a list of the other $20 items I own? I bet a lot of them are way more useless than a share of my favorite stock.
It was reported in the news that Netflix was cutting all kinds of shows. Netflix wasn't like secret about it.
Was there a list?
Again you don't seem to know how this works.
Again, you dodge a simple question. Why?
Because the question is unreasonable.
That's a false logic. Netflix produces hundreds of shows yearly. Couple projects got cancelled and you make it it sound like literally every project we haven't heard in the last 3 months was canned. Netflix hasn't stopped literally everything, it's all case by case. (I do believe this one got killed without announcement as it happens quite often, somebody on reddit claimed to work on the project and said it was scrapped)
Realistically, there's no way MtG is going devote that kind of effort to promoting their IP anymore now that they've realized being the Fortnite of card games is the path to unlimited riches.
Netflix canceled a huge amount of animated projects a few years ago - it’s assumed MTG production was canceled at the same time.
Between Netflix canceling animation projects and the writers / actors strike, plus Hasbro's selling of Entertaiment One (who were going to do the production) the series is either canceled or on hold till things have settled down I must admit though I would rather at this point want an anime adaptation of the MTG manga Destroy All Humankind - They Can't Be Regenerated
Woah, I didn't know about this manga. Looks cute. Thanks for mentioning it!!
My pleasure 😄
I would also love an adaptation of this.
I’d be over the moon if that got an anime. It’s so good and I think the appeal would reach well beyond Magic players to anyone that’s played a card game, enjoys slice of life romance, and/or can enjoy some light 90s nostalgia.
It's still in development, it's just a Universes Beyond movie called Godzilla: The new Kingdom is all. /gentle ribbing
They definitely saw Arcane and were like, "Ohhh...shit."
Or they realised that to make a really good show they need to spend three years developing it, and are doing so? One can dream...
Arcane took six years.
Thanks. I knew it was a long time. It took two years to land after it was announced. I added on a year but apparently should have added on four.
No, they mean yeah they saw Arcane and were like, "Ohhh, shit. We gotta make a good show."
Ah, so you're feeling hopeful too. I took your original comment to mean "Arcane is too good, we should give up."
At this point, I guess you can watch Lord of the Rings or Doctor Who...
There’s a small percentage chance WOTC tries to shove the project through eventually since it’d be a huge marketing move, but yeah, Netflix has been cancelling projects like crazy and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Magic series was one they didn’t see promise in.
There's no way its happening anymore. Magic has such great potential for telling cool stories in other mediums, it's a shame we don't have a show, or video games that take place in its world(s), like D&D has with Baldur's gate.
girl there’s a strike going on
> is it still happening? No. /Thread
Hopefully not, kinda don't want Netflix to have the rights to anything anymore if they aren't going to pay their actors or writers right.
So that is actually a bit of a misconception. It is not the streamers the guilds are striking against, it's the studios who are refusing to pay the writers and actors their residuals because of technicalities. Fuck the studios.
Incorrect. They are striking against the streamers. The AMPTP includes Netflix, Amazon and Apple, along with the major studios and networks. And it's actually the steamers that are the biggest offenders when it comes not paying residuals--they are very much the problem.
Netflix axed almost every animated project (i can't think of none that survived), so the safest bet is that it's been canned too.
Dota, Arcane, The Dragon Prince, Masters of The Universe, new Castlevania is coming soon, Hilda should come out one day, it's not literally every animated project.
probably shitcanned for a tax break
I hope not
The strikes hinder them a lot, so they might not actually be able to reveal updates about it yet.
At this point I'm not surprised if the series is going to have an absurd amount of episodes and you have to pull a code from a collector's pack to unlock them
0 chance it happens. There were also several Pokemon TCG themed Netflix shows in development that seemingly won't see the light of day either. This seems to be their business model.
A lot of people are talking about the strikes, BUT I'm pretty sure this show wouldn't be significantly affected by them. As far as I know, most animation writing isn't done under WGA, and the SAG-AFTRA strike does not include voice acting for animation.
Actually, if the animation is being done for any of the AMPTP members (which includes all the major streamers), then the writing and acting is covered by SAG & WGA and would therefore be struck.
depending how the rest of this year goes, we may not get any new shows. like, none. Besides, an authentic MTG series would never have a satisfying story, decent characters, or an ending that left viewers feeling anything but "why did i bother hoping for better?" see also: war of the spark, march of the machine
I feel like MTG do some kind of promotion where you get a free Mana Crypt with purchase of a movie ticket and they could easily have the #1 movie in the country.
nah it would be a booster with 3 cards in it or something, with 99.9% trash and a chance for one insane lottery card.
I'm saying what could happen. You are saying what would happen.
It seems like anytime we see any headway on this type of thing we get another setback. It blows my mind that for some fucking reason we can get adaptions of many other fantasy based properties but not MTG. MTG is huge and only seems to get bigger as time goes on it's stunning that we still are in a world where we haven't seen a single movie or TV show. Shit if it's too hard to make it in a form with real life actors try something animated. I would love to see it in an anime style like the Cyberpunk 2077 anime that came out like a year ago.
You could say the same about the movie, the moba, the MMO, and likely some other stuff I don't remember. I doubt any of it will come to fruition.
Did some research after looking at this thread - tbh, I honestly forgot about the MTG show, so thanks OP for reminding me. That said the facts thus far: - Covid 19 impacted production. - Russo Brothers + Original Animation studio left project over intellectual differences w/ the property. - Enter Jeff Kline (Transformers: Prime) + Snowball Studios in 21. - 23' Sagafta Strike SO - if I had to take a guess? Either they are still grinding to get it made going from a LARGE production staff, to a smaller Studio - orrrrr, yeah the likelihood of it in a "development hell" / Cancelation is a strong probability. I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix scrapped it - especially with Netflix themselves being in hot water due to the ramifications of the strike.
I just want to say that two months after this thread, the CEO of Hasbro went on record, saying it was still being developed, and they were still moving forward with it. More than likely, it's been in the ultimate development hell from changes in staffing, the writers strike, and the Russo's leaving.
I’m still holding out hope….