Chris Pine Believes Sequel To His Best Movie In Years Can Still Happen
Despite its short stay at the No. 1 box office ranking, the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves film proved popular with critics and audiences alike. It has an average critics score of 91 percent and an average audience rating of 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a truly impressive feat. One that has Chris Pine recently suggesting a sequel might happen – especially if Dungeons & Dragons owner Hasbro green-lights a new film project.
Pine Ponders Possibility Of Pushing Premise Forward
“I think there’s a really good chance that we’ll make another one because I think Hasbro owns the rights to it,” Pine told attendees during the ACE Superhero Comic Con 2024 event. “I think there’s a good chance, and if they could figure out a financial way to make it work, I think they’ll do it.”
Dungeons & Dragons is a well-established and enduringly popular fantasy role-playing game that was introduced to the game-playing world 50 years ago in 1974. Several generations of new players have embraced the game that they often refer to as DnD. The game is also credited with creating the role-playing game genre, which led to the creation of the popular 2023 film that took its title from the role-playing game.
Couldn’t Hurt To Roll The Dice Again
With Hasbro owning the franchise rights to the game and the film and Chris Pine clearly on board, a sequel is a viable possibility. Hasbro might want to invest in a sequel that would boost interest in and sales of the popular role-playing game. If the potential for crossover success exists, Hasbro is more likely to approve filming a sequel to the Dungeons & Dragons film that has a receptive audience, critical appeal, and a star willing to shine in the lead role once again.
Stiff Competition At The Box Office
The 2023 Chris Pine-led Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves film blends fantasy, comedy, and action into a fun movie opened as the nation’s No. 1 film for its first five days in theaters on March 31, 2023, but quickly lost its lofty spot to the wildly popular and successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which dominated movie theater box office ticket sales and held the No. 1 film spot for an entire month and finished with a box office total of more than $1.36 billion.
The Dungeons & Dragons film starring Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, and Hugh Grant produced a global total of $208.18 million in ticket sales, which was more than enough to cover its $150 million production budget. Unfortunately, the film likely fell short of covering its additional marketing costs due to strong competition from other films. When the summer Barbenheimer phenomenon arrived, it’s safe to say the Chris Pine Dungeons & Dragons film suffered at the box office.
Beaten Out By Barbenheimer
The release date proved to be a disadvantage with The Super Mario Bros. film arriving just five days after Dungeons & Dragons and the dual Barbie and Oppenheimer films releasing on the same day and dominating the box office through the summer months in 2023. The Barbenheimer phenomenon was a boon for the domestic and global box office industries. So was the Super Mario Bros. Movie, but those films clearly made it impossible for the Chris Pine-led Dungeons & Dragons film to have any staying power.
Timing Is Everything
Had it come out a year later, when the box office was struggling to find its savior before the release of Inside Out 2, the Dungeons & Dragons film probably would have fared better at the box office. The animated Inside Out 2 arrived in the nick of time to blitz the box office with about $1.22 billion in global box office receipts in about three weeks and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon.
