How badly has D&D been mismanaged?

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I have faith they’ll do Galactus well but I don’t have faith in Secret Wars.
I also have grave reservations about secret wars.

I didn’t even realise they had retold the whole story from scratch since I read it in the 80s. Nothing is sacred.
 
There's a saying going around Hollywood at the moment, which can help explain why they're doing this:

"Male and Pale are Stale." This is the core, and sincere, belief that is making all the choices in movies post 2012. We also need to remember that making a movie is years long project. On average it takes between a total of 2-5 years for them to get it out.

Which is why a lot of them seem out of touch, because they feel like they're from 2017-2019.

This is as far as I'll go on this.

I would like to posit, going back to the main topic, that D&D has always been 'mismanaged', from it's TSR to now it's Hasbro days.
 
I also have grave reservations about secret wars.

I didn’t even realise they had retold the whole story from scratch since I read it in the 80s. Nothing is sacred.
Yeah, the new one is NOTHING like what we read back in the day. They haven’t done nearly enough set up for the new Secret Wars to pay off in my opinion.
 
So is John Travolta going to play The Beyonder?

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The term 'fatigue' is Hollywood's excuse to coverup that their movies are lacking. It implies that no matter how good the movies are, people are just tired of it. Which is counter to everything they've ever released about what the Audience wants.
I wonder how much more movies are are produced nowadays (if any) when compared to say, the nineties. With the according adjustment to population growth of course. I wonder if that could be the fatigue they are seeing. People just might not be interested in going to see the mediocre stuff so much anymore, because it is produced more?
 
I wonder how much more movies are are produced nowadays (if any) when compared to say, the nineties. With the according adjustment to population growth of course. I wonder if that could be the fatigue they are seeing. People just might not be interested in going to see the mediocre stuff so much anymore, because it is produced more?
It depends a lot by country, of course, but for the U.S. and Canada the number of feature films released annually apparently more than doubled between 2000 and 2018, with a COVID drop-off in 2020, if you trust Statista.
 
It depends a lot by country, of course, but for the U.S. and Canada the number of feature films released annually apparently more than doubled between 2000 and 2018, with a COVID drop-off in 2020, if you trust Statista.
So that might explain at least some of it. Too many items for sale, not enough buyers. Kind of like apartments in my hometown.
 
I wonder how much more movies are are produced nowadays (if any) when compared to say, the nineties. With the according adjustment to population growth of course. I wonder if that could be the fatigue they are seeing. People just might not be interested in going to see the mediocre stuff so much anymore, because it is produced more?
Movie production did go up after the '90s and then fell of a cliff with COVID. Then it turned out it had landed on a ledge and fell off another cliff with the strike. Those events hurt the studios enough, but you also have low box office figures combined with absurdly bloated budgets and reshoots. A lot of studios have announced they are scaling back the number of TV shows and movies they are making. The industry is shrinking and expected to shrink further.

Here are some relevant articles from this year.
 
Movie production did go up after the '90s and then fell of a cliff with COVID. Then it turned out it had landed on a ledge and fell off another cliff with the strike. Those events hurt the studios enough, but you also have low box office figures combined with absurdly bloated budgets and reshoots. A lot of studios have announced they are scaling back the number of TV shows and movies they are making. The industry is shrinking and expected to shrink further.

Here are some relevant articles from this year.
China is probably a factor in this, although it's difficult to know how much because it doesn't get a lot of attention. But it's got to hit into the willingness to throw lots of money at a movie when you're losing out in that market (Marvel was huge in China).
By the spring of 2023, The Economist declared that "Hollywood is Losing the Battle for China", citing that from 2010 to 2021, the recorded views of China's films on Douban, a Chinese site for reviewing films, rose from 21% to 55% as the share of Anglo films fell from 53% to 28%.
Link
 
I mean, the problem is that Secret Wars in the comics was garbage anyway and was just a 12 issue toy commercial.

I'm not sure why anyone is having nostalgia for it, it was ass.
A) not the secret wars they are adapting
B) the original Secret Wars is beloved by many

C) perhaps you are just angry Spider-Man owned the X-Men in the miniseries?
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No, the rule of thumb for movie promotional costs is an additional 50%.
Oh I’m well aware of that, but that somehow is being left out of the conversation.

Add to this a studio does not get 100% of the cut at the box office, the theater gets a chunk.

Point being Disney took a massive bath in 2023.
 
Oh I’m well aware of that, but that somehow is being left out of the conversation.

Add to this a studio does not get 100% of the cut at the box office, the theater gets a chunk.

Point being Disney took a massive bath in 2023.
Well, I didn't bring it up because do we really want an argument about the significance of box office numbers?
 
K dunno about anyone else, but I wanna see a Marvel movie with Nicholas Cage, Eric Roberts, and Jeff Fahey. Maybe throw a Busey in there for a little zing.

I dare them.
 
Well, I didn't bring it up because do we really want an argument about the significance of box office numbers?
Well, when it’s implied that super hero movies are doing well by simply pointing out how much they cost and leaving out two other key as in massive factors?

Yes.

Take Antman 3 (roughly speaking) $200 million budget, $100 million promotional budget and a cut of around 40% to the theaters?

That’s a loss no matter how fuzzy Hollywood gets with their math.

Further proof there are issues? Look at the drop off from the Captain Marvel movies. First one was billed as a “must see” before Engame.

Anyone want to bet that it would reach a billion if released today? We can take up that bet by looking at how the Marvels did in comparison.

The Mouse is wise to only be releasing Deadpool3 this year. The usual suspects will claim the “MCU is back!” all the while missing the problems are all still there and Deadpool (largely) is a stand alone rather than fully MCU in a way.
 
K dunno about anyone else, but I wanna see a Marvel movie with Nicholas Cage, Eric Roberts, and Jeff Fahey. Maybe throw a Busey in there for a little zing.

I dare them.
Nicholas Cage was Ghost Rider but I could accept him in another role as well, in fact they could replace everyone with Nic Cage and I’d watch it…
 
Nicholas Cage was Ghost Rider but I could accept him in another role as well, in fact they could replace everyone with Nic Cage and I’d watch it…
This sounds like a job for AI. Replace all the lead roles in a movie with Nic Cage. Or even all the actors for a trippier experience.
 
Nicholas Cage was Ghost Rider but I could accept him in another role as well, in fact they could replace everyone with Nic Cage and I’d watch it…
The first 30 minutes of the movie all the superheroes are wearing masks. Then one of them takes off his mask...and it's Nicholas Cage, and then the next one is Nicholas Cage, and then the next.
 
I could do a D&D movie a year and it wouldn't get tired or stale. I'd just mine the great fantasy that's already out there and put the Dungeons & Dragons monogram on it. So we'd have Elric, and Hawkmoon, and Conan, and Fafard and the Grey Mouser, and Holgar Karlson, and Belgarath, and on and on under the imprint, the authors would make bank and the movies would be a lot better than what I'd come up with myself.
 
I want a movie that takes place in a D&D style dungeon. 5 official Dungeons & Dragons films released in my lifetime so far, and NONE of them have done that. I don;t understand either, because seems like it'd be cheap as hell to make.
 
I want a movie that takes place in a D&D style dungeon. 5 official Dungeons & Dragons films released in my lifetime so far, and NONE of them have done that. I don;t understand either, because seems like it'd be cheap as hell to make.
Sure there was, I think it was called Alien Vs Predator...
 
Here again is my idea for a D&D movie:

We start with an establishing scene of the classic map by Darlene on a table with a skull candle, dagger, and maybe the wand of orcus. In the background two people are making out, we pan into the shadow and it's Iuz and Zugtmoy making out and giggling. We shift frame through a glowing crimson pentacle on the wall into the nine Hells, Asmodeus and Dispatcher are explaining their plan to invade and seize the Flannesses region at long last. A cringing, grovelling Dretch limps away with the drink tray after a bit of mean spirited abuse and prays "Saint Cuthbert, one such as I has no right to gaze upwards at the heavens but grant thine fallen servant's prayer and warn them." The camera follows into a tear in his eye and spins out into a beautiful, immaculate glass cathedral where a scarred and beaten man kneels before an altar to Pelor, his hand resting on a battered cudgel. He raises an eye to the sungod's image in the stained glass and we pan back to a dark stone cathedral where a young priest in armour kneels before the altar his hand resting on a mace. He rises, looks into the ajoining chamber where fat priests are drinking and laughing and making sneering comments about their parishoners. The young priest sighs, shakes his head, and walks away out the side door. He walks down the street and a cloud passes overhead, casting the scene in shadow. A beautiful girl in tan leathers is leaning in a doorway hefting a sack of coins. She turns to the young priest and smiles and comes over, asks why he's looking so serious, after all, it's not the end of the world and he looks her right in they eye and says, "but it is, it really is." The scene shifts to a quiet tavern, there's a dwarf in plate armor, an ugly, female, half - orc in scale mail, the priest, the girl from the doorway, and a gnome in an elaborate robe talking and looking at a crudely drawn map on the table. We cut to them travelling up a mountain path in the rain. Their guide takes payment, pointing them to an ill used rocky path over looked by a skeleton nailed up on a post. The guide turns and leads the pack mules away and we follow the path up, passing the heroes as they march single file, and there is a disturbing cave, like the collapsed entrance of a forgotten temple ahead of them.
 
It depends a lot by country, of course, but for the U.S. and Canada the number of feature films released annually apparently more than doubled between 2000 and 2018, with a COVID drop-off in 2020, if you trust Statista.

Those numbers are very deceptive as the number of theatrically released films is way, way down compared to the 90s. Not to mention the highs of the 30s and 40s or even the 70s. Drive-ins helped for a while in the 60s/70s and VHS/DVD was a big boost throughout the 80s and 90s but the number of films getting theatrical release these days in the US is at a historical low.

Without at least limited theatrical release it is unlikely anyone is going to see your film. Netflix's claims for their Netflix only films are considered highly suspect and of course they just announced they aren't going to be releasing subscriber numbers anymore.

Early digital release, where they put a film out at a higher price than a rental, does help smaller films but those that get a limited theatrical release do significantly better.
 
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