A new Dungeons & Dragons 2 update shows how the potential sequel learned from 2023's biggest box office failures, including Honor Among Thieves.
Summary
- Paramount is considering making a smaller budget for Dungeons & Dragons 2 after the first movie's box office disappointment and other movies' failures.
- The box office failure of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and other high-budget movies in 2023 has raised concerns about Hollywood's approach to budgeting.
- While the first movie received positive reviews, Paramount recognizes the need to avoid repeating the same formula and hopes that a smaller budget for the sequel will lead to better success.
A new update on the status of Dungeons & Dragons 2 learns the right lessons from 2023's biggest box office failures. Paramount revived the popular TTRPG as a movie franchise in early 2023 with the release of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and more. Even though the movie earned rave reviews and is based on an incredibly popular game, the box office did not live up to the hype. This left the studio and audiences with plenty of uncertainty about whether Dungeons & Dragons 2 would happen to continue the franchise.
The status of a Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves sequel has been left in the balance for months following the movie's debut without too many positive updates. That effectively changed when Paramount CEO Brian Robbins gave an update about the possibility of the fantasy franchise continuing. He revealed that the future of Dungeons & Dragons 2 happening rests on the studio and filmmakers figuring out a way to make the movie for a much smaller budget. This far from guarantees that a sequel is on the way, but it is a promising update that shows Paramount is learning from 2023's box office failures.
Dungeons and Dragons & More 2023 Movies Failed Thanks To Massive Budgets
The fact that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a box office bomb is not up for debate. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves only made $208 million worldwide against its reported $150M budget. That means Paramount potentially lost around $100M on the 2023 movie, making it unwise for the studio to try and find more box office success without lowering the budget. However, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is far from the only movie with a huge budget that struggled at the box office in 2023.
Several high-profile franchise movies followed in Dungeons & Dragons' footsteps to become box office flops. The list includes Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Haunted Mansion. The continued failures of movies that cost anywhere between $150M and $300M to make has been a massive box office story in 2023. This created questions about if Hollywood would actually learn from these mistakes and make a concerted effort to lower budgets in an effort to increase the likelihood that major movies would be bigger box office hits.
Dungeons & Dragons 2’s Smaller Budget Means Avoiding The First Movie’s Biggest Problem
Paramount's goal of making Dungeons & Dragons 2 on a smaller budget proves that the sequel is learning the right lessons after all. Everything worked for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves outside its box office haul. The movie has an excellent cast, an excellent director duo in Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, big action, plenty of heart, and even received Rotten Tomatoes scores of 90% or higher from critics and audiences. The overall reception to the movie does not match Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' box office performance, but that does not mean Paramount should have repeated the formula and hoped for a better result.
Making Dungeons & Dragons 2's budget smaller means that the sequel will be better positioned to avoid the first movie's biggest problem. That does not guarantee that the hypothetical sequel would be as well received as the first, but it does make a path to success more achievable. Now the only question is if Paramount figures out how to achieve the smaller Dungeons & Dragons 2 budget so the sequel can be officially announced.
