How badly has D&D been mismanaged?

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So here's a question: how many successful (and/or good) movies or TV shows have been made based on board games, or basically any other type of game that isn't a video game?

I liked Clue, for example, though it didn't make its budget back at the box office (however, I'm guessing it did all right eventually, becoming a bit of a cult film and all).
 
chuckdee said:
I thought that was The Expanse
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Firefly felt more like Traveller, but the Expanse was righteous in its own right. Mostly because it successfully blended several science fiction subgenre as part of a larger interesting story.
 
robertsconley said:
Firefly felt more like Traveller, but the Expanse was righteous in its own right. Mostly because it successfully blended several science fiction subgenre as part of a larger interesting story.
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Also had read that The Expanse was based on the authors home Traveller game. Clearly a hard core New Era player. :smile:
 
Dyrnwyn said:
So here's a question: how many successful (and/or good) movies or TV shows have been made based on board games, or basically any other type of game that isn't a video game?

I liked Clue, for example, though it didn't make its budget back at the box office (however, I'm guessing it did all right eventually, becoming a bit of a cult film and all).
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A minority but they are there. I think Rampage, and honestly Battleship, were both much better than they had any right to be.
 
sharps54 said:
A minority but they are there. I think Rampage, and honestly Battleship, were both much better than they had any right to be.
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Rampage was originally a video game. As for Battleship, I haven't seen it, but it flopped at the box office.
 
EmperorNorton said:
Also, I'm going to be honest. I love the cognitive dissonance I am getting from this thread. Normally this forum is the first to point out that being the most financially successful doesn't necessarily mean the highest quality: IE: D&D isn't the best RPG just because it makes the most money.

But with the MCU movies, the fact that they are making less money is turned into a indictment of the quality of the films. Mostly because it fits with the person's preconceived notions.

Yeah, the movies have been doing worse at the box office after Endgame.

You know what happened after Endgame? Just saying as someone who still likes the MCU movies, I have been to the theater like... twice since the start of the pandemic.

I think also the issue is that we are back in a setting up phase, and everyone is used to the climax portion. Everything before Endgame builds up to Endgame. But now that we are passed Endgame we have to reestablish again to build up to something new.
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I don’t know, I am pretty easy on movies and while I have enjoyed some of the newer films, like The Marvels, I just don’t think they are doing as good a job building as they did before.
 
Dyrnwyn said:
Rampage was originally a video game. As for Battleship, I haven't seen it, but it flopped at the box office.
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Crap. My bad. Jumanji? I know. I know. Ok, board games haven’t done great but luckily D&D isn’t a board game :hehe:
 
Anybody who wants to make a very successful film probably shouldn't listen to me, because I am unfortunately afflicted by good taste, which seems to be anathema to widespread success, and I still view money as a big game of make believe that adults are all playing, so it has almost no importance to me.
 
I mean if you want to make a lot of money look at the successful franchises like Fast and Furious and Transformers. Maybe you just need more racist robots and juvenile humor in your film…
 
Ouch, I didn’t realize Battleship did that poorly,
“Battleship premiered in Tokyo on April 3, 2012, and was released by Universal Picturesin the United States on May 18, 2012. The film received generally negative reviews and underperformed at the box-office, grossing $303 million worldwide against a production budget of $209–220 million, losing both Universal and Hasbro $150 million.”
Source Wikipedia
 
sharps54 said:
I mean if you want to make a lot of money look at the successful franchises like Fast and Furious and Transformers. Maybe you just need more racist robots and juvenile humor in your film…
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Pretty much.
 
sharps54 said:
Ouch, I didn’t realize Battleship did that poorly,
“Battleship premiered in Tokyo on April 3, 2012, and was released by Universal Picturesin the United States on May 18, 2012. The film received generally negative reviews and underperformed at the box-office, grossing $303 million worldwide against a production budget of $209–220 million, losing both Universal and Hasbro $150 million.”
Source Wikipedia
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Honestly if it had just been 2 hours of Liam Neesan playing the boardgame Battleship against other actors, I would have been more than down for that.
 
sharps54 said:
Ouch, I didn’t realize Battleship did that poorly,
“Battleship premiered in Tokyo on April 3, 2012, and was released by Universal Picturesin the United States on May 18, 2012. The film received generally negative reviews and underperformed at the box-office, grossing $303 million worldwide against a production budget of $209–220 million, losing both Universal and Hasbro $150 million.”
Source Wikipedia
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It also opened while The Avengers was still in theaters, which likely didn't help.
 
Tbh, any time something I really like does well financially I'm more confused than anything else.

I feel like what hits financially and what doesn't just has a certain element of luck to it. Right time, right place, etc.; I'm still baffled that somehow Nier Automata did as well as it did. I was a huge huge huge fan of Nier Gestalt/Replicant before Automata came out, and it did really bad and reviewed badly as well.

Then Automata came out, and people suddenly all really loved Gestalt/Replicant.

Financial success is just weird and while there are things you can do to improve your odds, there is no sure fire "I win" button.

Hell, personally I found Honor Among Thieves to be a pretty fun movie. It wasn't the best thing ever, but it was a solid action adventure movie that I don't regret having watched. If someone had shown me the movie and gone "Yeah, this movie hit huge!" I would have believed it. Cause what the fuck do I know apparently.
 
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sharps54 said:
I don’t know, I am pretty easy on movies and while I have enjoyed some of the newer films, like The Marvels, I just don’t think they are doing as good a job building as they did before.
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Idk, I've enjoyed all the newer movies to some degree or another except Eternals, which was just a mess (it was really trying to tell too much story in too limited of a time, Eternals would have been better as a TV series). Haven't seen The Marvels yet though.

And it wasn't like there weren't weak movies in the old phases. Iron Man 2, Thor 2, Age of Ultron were all bad to meh. Age of Ultron was ok... but nowhere close to the other Avengers movies. Iron Man 2 was bad, and Thor 2 is perhaps the worst movie in the entire MCU.
 
EmperorNorton said:
Idk, I've enjoyed all the newer movies to some degree or another except Eternals, which was just a mess (it was really trying to tell too much story in too limited of a time, Eternals would have been better as a TV series). Haven't seen The Marvels yet though,

And it wasn't like there weren't weak movies in the old phases. Iron Man 2, Thor 2, Age of Ultron were all bad to meh. Age of Ultron was ok... but nowhere close to the other Avengers movies. Iron Man 2 was bad, and Thor 2 is perhaps the worst movie in the entire MCU.
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I think my issue is the breaking of the earlier continuity and the fact I hate the idea and implementation of the TVA. But things like
Thanos being a robot
and the way the gods have been treated just to deliver a few jokes in the last couple Thor movies rub me wrong.
 
The funny thing about Battleship is that there's a lot of good stuff in there but it doesn't quite hold together. It's also quite clearly intended as the start of a series. The alien ship that hits the satellite and explodes at the start of the movie is the one carrying the communications equipment, diplomats and leaders. What follows is a military operation to capture vital assets like a communications array. The US Navy is reacting, we get to see a modern navy focused on frigates and aircraft carriers. We get to see that the aliens are operating under rules of engagement. Yes they bring the Battleship (Missouri?) out of retirement and those big 16 inch guns are serious brute force. The old guys just popping up to crew it and everything being in place to fight it is a bit off but hey! It's a board game movie and still does a better job of showing logistics than any Star Wars or Star Trek I've ever seen.

It's not the movie I would have made. I'd have made a gritty WWII navy movie in the Pacific. On the other hand Battleship would be a terrible D&D movie.
 
Speaking of movies I bought my ticket for Furiosa earlier today to see it open day at the Alamo Drafthouse. Also long as 79 year George Miller wants to crank these out I’ll be there :grin:
 
While it would appeal to people here I don’t see a movie based on Keep on the Borderlands or say Village of Homlett being a compelling movie for the masses which is what it would take to succeed.

Dragonlance as I mentioned or maybe Baldurs Gate.
 
Willmark said:
While it would appeal to people here I don’t see a movie based on Keep on the Borderlands or say Village of Homlett being a compelling movie for the masses which is what it would take to succeed.

Dragonlance as I mentioned or maybe Baldurs Gate.
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Maybe you could do a Baldur’s Gate tv show, something like Deadwood or Boardwalk Empire
 
There was a time that they could have maybe made a great Dragonlance trilogy of films, and that time was in the wake of Peter Jackson's LOTR.

In the age of The Witcher and Rings of Power, there is just no chance any fantasy film on that scale would be done well.
 
TristramEvans said:
There was a time that they could have maybe made a great Dragonlance trilogy of films, and that time was in the wake of Peter Jackson's LOTR.

In the age of The Witcher and Rings of Power, there is just no chance any fantasy film on that scale would be done well.
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After Rings of Power there may not be a chance that fans will trust another LotR show
 
Willmark said:
While it would appeal to people here I don’t see a movie based on Keep on the Borderlands or say Village of Homlett being a compelling movie for the masses which is what it would take to succeed..
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You could make a good movie based on Tomb of Horrors - but as most people fail to understand the dungeon I guess any movie would miss the point too and think it's a random killer DM dungeon (it's a puzzle with a great twist at the end that makes it all make sense - a clever group should be able to bypass all the traps to get to the end, which is the entire point of the adventure).
 
xanther said:
Also had read that The Expanse was based on the authors home Traveller game. Clearly a hard core New Era player. :smile:
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The Expanse was a play-by-mail game so not an RPG as such but more interactive fiction, and doesn't feel much like Traveller to me. Firefly on the other hand feels like a classic Traveller game - the military veterans crewing a ship picking up jobs to travel between different planets (often illicit cargo or otherwise dodgy missions) - the episodic nature of it etc.
 
JoeNuttall said:
The Expanse was a play-by-mail game so not an RPG as such but more interactive fiction, and doesn't feel much like Traveller to me. Firefly on the other hand feels like a classic Traveller game - the military veterans crewing a ship picking up jobs to travel between different planets (often illicit cargo or otherwise dodgy missions) - the episodic nature of it etc.
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Where did you see that it was a Play-by-mail? I do see that it was d20 not Traveler, but it seems to be an in-person game.

www.polygon.com

The Expanse, once a homebrew tabletop RPG, is going legit

Authors behind the successful TV show discuss The Expanse Roleplaying Game
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com
 
xanther said:
Also had read that The Expanse was based on the authors home Traveller game. Clearly a hard core New Era player. :smile:
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Well the heart of it was a crew of troubleshooters getting into shit. :grin: The Expanse is a close second. But I give the nod to Firefly, as the core of it was explicitly a merchant crew trying to make a buck.
 
EmperorNorton said:
Idk, I've enjoyed all the newer movies to some degree or another except Eternals, which was just a mess (it was really trying to tell too much story in too limited of a time, Eternals would have been better as a TV series). Haven't seen The Marvels yet though.
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I liked Eternals. Mind you, I also liked Thor 2, so apparently I've no taste, and so on and so forth.

As for the D&D movie, I liked it and I thought the decision to not do a 'coming of age' or 'creation myth' or 'hero's journey' story was a good one. I, for one, am sick of those, and I'm tired of seeing them over and over as they reboot a franchise again and again. The MCU was wise in not doing any of that for Spiderman, but just having him there, with his powers, when he's recruited by Stark. The D&D movie just having a quick introduction ('Here's how we got where we are') and then going into the story was a good move, and in fitting with it being basically a comedic heist movie.
 
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sharps54 said:
I still think if they make an ‘authentic’ D&D movie, whatever that means, they are best served with a fairly low budget so there is room for it to make money and if it does well a lot of money. The only way these things get financed is if they make money.
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Personally I feel like good low budget style is a good fit to to a film that is supposed to specifically be an RPG film. Get a good script, decent B grade actors, but sci-fi channel level of production / effects is fine.

I see a distinct difference between a fantasy film and an RPG film. An RPG film could be as simple as having "the players / GM" provide the intro before fading into the "game world".

I use The Gamers Dorkness Rising as my benchmark for an RPG film. None of the official D&D films meet my definition of RPG film, despite being based on D&D. They have all just been fantasy films. Only the most recent even came close, mostly due to some of the gags (cemetery scene in particular) which struck me as the kind of thing that happens around the table.
 
Sharrow said:
I liked Eternals. Mind you, I also liked Thor 2, so apparently I've no taste, and so on and so forth.
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I didnt see Eternals, but I liked Thor 2 just fine. Thought the Dark Elf designs were awesome.

I have really low standards for superhero films, in all honesty. Which is why the fact that so many are failing to entertain me despite that is quite flummoxing.
 
Toadmaster said:
I use The Gamers Dorkness Rising as my benchmark for an RPG film.
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I really like The Gamers also, but there's no mass market appeal.

Maybe if you went full isekai with a bounce back to reality in cutscenes, it would work.

Could also go full immersive real world, like the movie, "OMG... We're in a Horror Movie!!!" Again, great flick, but no mass appeal.
 
sharps54 said:
Ouch, I didn’t realize Battleship did that poorly,
“Battleship premiered in Tokyo on April 3, 2012, and was released by Universal Picturesin the United States on May 18, 2012. The film received generally negative reviews and underperformed at the box-office, grossing $303 million worldwide against a production budget of $209–220 million, losing both Universal and Hasbro $150 million.”
Source Wikipedia
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Personally I think Battleship was hurt by the game tie in. I think that turned people away, just for being a stupid idea.

It is not a great movie, but there are much worse action / sci-fi films and it had a few high points. The USS Missouri dropping anchor to power slide into a broadside against the aliens is well worth the price of googling it on youtube. :wink:


No whining about spoilers, you've had 12 years to watch it.

 
TristramEvans said:
I didnt see Eternals, but I liked Thor 2 just fine. Thought the Dark Elf designs were awesome.

I have really low standards for superhero films, in all honesty. Which is why the fact that so many are failing to entertain me despite that is quite flummoxing.
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I feel that from about Age of Ultron the formula used for most of them has grown stale for me. Some of the later ones are okay, but often the ones I like are not the ones that 'everyone' else think are the good ones, but overall I've grown tired of the MCU movie line.
 
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