Hasbro Selling Entertainment Division And It Could Really Affect Major Franchises
Hasbro is looking for a buyer to purchase eOne, the studio behind Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Hasbro is looking to sell eOne, an entertainment division the company acquired in 2019. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Darren Throop, eOne’s original founder, is in talks to make the purchase. The eOne banner has produced and distributed thousands of popular titles, including Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Woman King, and Yellowjackets.
Hasbro purchased eOne for a whopping $4 billion, but last November, the company signaled that it was looking to sell the division. Hasbro, like many major media companies, is focusing on franchises. Any sale of eOne that Hasbro agrees to will likely see the toy conglomerate hang onto pillars like Peppa Pig, the Transformers franchise, and Dungeons & Dragons.
Under its new CEO Chris Cocks, Hasbro is also looking ahead to become a key player in the digital games space. Selling eOne, which involves itself with one-off films like Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans alongside its franchise content, would allow Hasbro more resources to devote to its most popular brands.
2019 was not that long ago, but a lot has changed since that time. When Hasbro purchased eOne, it had a game plan to become one of the biggest Hollywood players. The COVID-19 pandemic and the passing of the company’s CEO Brian Goldner in 2021 threw giant wrenches into Hasbro’s media strategy.
Now Hasbro is shifting focus yet again to accommodate the rapidly changing tides of the industry. The company is, in a way, simplifying. By selling off eOne, it can reinvest that capital into a more concentrated slate of reliable performers from its list of successful franchises.
What does that mean for audiences? It likely means that Hasbro will double down on familiar titles moving forward, bringing forth more Transformers, more Dungeons & Dragons, and even more Peppa.
There has not been a Transformers movie in theaters since Bumblebee in 2018. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will reignite the robo-mayhem when it releases this June. The latest installment stars franchise newcomers Anthony Ramos, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Ron Perlman, Pete Davidson, and Peter Cullen, who returns to voice Optimus Prime.
Before it was sold to Hasbro, eOne was a successful independent studio. If the company does end up back in the hands of Darren Throop, it will be a company transformed by Hasbro’s extraction of some of the company’s most valuable assets. That may put eOne’s focus back squarely on bringing original films to the masses.
eOne has been involved in acclaimed movies like Spotlight, Logan Lucky, 1917, and X. Still on its slate in its partnership with Hasbro are Rise of the Beasts, a 2024 animated Transformers film, and another G.I. Joe project. What Throop decides to do with eOne beyond that point is still a mystery, but given the company’s track record, there are likely many original films still to come.
Major Hollywood players have been shuffling the deck in big ways lately as seismic shifts continue to quake through the film and TV industry. Some of these moves have film fans concerned about the future of the industry, but the Hasbro sale of eOne could be one that makes for better indies and studio tentpoles alike.
