{"id":398971,"date":"2026-04-26T21:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/398971\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T21:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:23:12","slug":"how-the-best-fantasy-movie-of-the-decade-was-destroyed-by-corporate-greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/398971\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Best Fantasy Movie Of The Decade Was Destroyed By Corporate Greed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most successful fantasy films of all time, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter, have reigned at the top of the mountain for decades, yet the genre has experienced a resurgence in recent years thanks to the rise of podcasts. Actual play podcasts featuring players going through a tabletop RPG have become one of the hottest genres of the new medium, and the best of them, including\u00a0Critical Role,\u00a0Dimension 20, and\u00a0Not Another D&D Podcast, were based on\u00a0Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think that 2023\u2019s Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the best fantasy movie of the last decade, would have become a hit, but instead it disappointed at the box office (ironically, thanks to the franchise owner, Wizards of the Coast, horrible timing). Now it\u2019s finally developing a following.<\/p>\n

A Tabletop Adventure On The Big Screen\"\"<\/p>\n

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves picks up after the adventuring party of Edvin the Bard (Chris Pine), Holga the Barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez), Simon the Sorcerer (Justice Smith), Doric the Druid (Sophia Lillis), and Forge the Thief (Hugh Grant<\/a>) were betrayed by the obviously evil wizard Sofina (Daisy Head). Out for revenge, Evin and Holga get the band back together, go into an actual dungeon complete with a dragon, and pull off a fantastical heist.<\/p>\n

The film has everything fans of the game have wanted to see on the big screen for decades, including an aarakocra and a cameo appearance by the characters from the 80s\u00a0Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon. Actual spells from the tabletop game are used, and real mechanics were played out.<\/p>\n

All of this helped make the rollicking adventure feel like someone\u2019s homebrew campaign brought to life. Even for those who don\u2019t play the tabletop game, the comedy beats all and makes it a fun fantasy adventure.<\/p>\n

Why Dungeons & Dragons Failed To Find A Big Theater Audience\"\"<\/p>\n

Mere weeks before Honor Among Thieves was released, Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Dungeons and Dragons, did something so heinous it caused a boycott by fans. For more than 20 years, the game had operated under the Open Gaming License (OGL).<\/p>\n

That OGL let independent writers and small companies create adventures, rulebooks, podcasts, and entire businesses built around D&D without fear of being shut down. And Wizards of the Coast decided to end it all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A leaked draft of a new license Wizards of the Coast was planning appeared online. The Open Game License was being changed so that Wizards would get a 25 percent cut of everything fans earn when a creator makes more than $750,000 from monetizing the game. Worse still, the new terms would ban all online tabletop simulators and allow Wizards of the Coast to claim sole ownership of anything created by fans.<\/p>\n

This leak of the company\u2019s plans sparked a firestorm in the Dungeons & Dragons community<\/a>. Core fans revolted en masse. An organic, fan-driven boycott of the company and everything it was involved with began. That boycott included the movie, meaning the group of people Hollywood expected as the film\u2019s core supporters were not only avoiding it, but actively campaigning to keep it from being seen. It worked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The film received a favorable response from those who saw it, with a 91 percent \u201cfresh\u201d rating on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> from over 300 reviews by critics and a matching 92 percent from over 2,000 reviews by the public. Yet Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves underperformed, barely squeaking by with $200 million worldwide. That failure is undeniable, but it\u2019s not the fault of the movie. Honor Among Thieves was destroyed by the greed of the company that owns its IP.<\/p>\n

The backlash became so intense that Wizards eventually reversed course and released key D&D rules under a Creative Commons license, making them far harder to control in the future. But that change was too late to save Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.<\/p>\n

Standing On Its Own\"\"<\/p>\n

Removed from the drama of early 2023, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves can now stand on its own merit. Thanks to streaming<\/a>, audiences are watching and enjoying the movie.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the movie\u2019s weak performance destroyed the hope of a sequel. However, if Honor Among Thieves continues to gain a much-deserved cult following, there\u2019s always a chance that the writer\/director duo of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who also worked with Pine on Horrible Bosses 2) will get another chance to bring the game to life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Whether Honor Among Thieves gets the sequel it deserves or not, thanks to streaming, fans can enjoy the funniest fantasy movie since Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and newcomers can get a taste of what it\u2019s like to play the most popular tabletop role-playing game in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most successful fantasy films of all time, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter, have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[145039,156,205955,205953,92530,165034,192429,409,111,139,69,205951,205952,205954,115571],"class_list":{"0":"post-398971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-chris-pine","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-fantasy-adventure","11":"tag-fantasy-films","12":"tag-honor-among-thieves","13":"tag-hugh-grant","14":"tag-justice-smith","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-open-gaming-license","20":"tag-tabletop-game","21":"tag-the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy","22":"tag-wizards-of-the-coast"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}