Dungeons & Dragons lands a critical (commercial) hit at the weekend box office
Lifted by the promise of both dungeons and dragons, the game adaptation opened strong
Aux News Dungeons & Dragons
Most movies aren’t bold enough to offer you more than one dungeon or more than one dragon, let alone advertise the number of dungeons or dragons they contain in the title, but perhaps that sheer level of confidence is what boosted Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to the top of the domestic box office this weekend. It’s either that or the film’s classic “something for everyone” appeal, provided you like dungeons, dragons, or opportunities to make “Dungeons and dragons? In this economy?” jokes. Anyway, it opened to $38 million, enough to comfortably put it at the top of the charts.
That’s about $10 million ahead of John Wick: Chapter 4, which dropped a little more than 60 percent in its second weekend (after a franchise-high opening). It made $28 million this weekend and has $122 million after two weeks. After that is one of this weekend’s other newcomers, Bible movie His Only Son (it’s about the time God said to Abraham “kill me a son” and Abe said “Man, you must be puttin’ me on.”), which opened to a relatively respectable $5.5 million. Rounding out the top five are Scream VI and Creed III, both of which made around $5 million (Scream is just under $100 million after four weeks, and Creed is just under $150 million after five weeks).
The rest of the top 10 features Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, Sundance hit A Thousand And One, 65, Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, and Jesus Revolution. Other than Shazam!, which made more than $4 million (and has $53 million after three weeks), they all made about $1 million this weekend.
The full top 10 list, courtesy of Box Office Mojo, is below.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- John Wick: Chapter 4
- His Only Son
- Scream VI
- Creed III
- Shazam! Fury Of The Gods
- A Thousand And One
- 65
- Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
- Jesus Revolution
47 Comments
Hear me out on this one: three or four movies with these same characters, but in vastly different settings. Then the final scene is the same actors revealed to be playing all these campaigns in the real world, with some huge unexpected cameo as the Dungeon Master.
Since Joe Manganiello is a well know celebrity DM, he would be perfect for that cameo, perhaps featuring his real-life players.
And I think we all know who the perfect cameo would be:
not him, but watch the movie, you will see something amusing. relating to the cartoon.
I haven’t watched the cartoon in literal decades. How likely am I to catch the reference?
I haven’t watched the cartoon in literal decades. How likely am I to catch the reference?It’s blatant.
Hey, that little guy used to post here on AV Club!
Finally some fucking Spelljammer.
Tom Hanks?
I’ve been saying since before this movie went into production that they should have gotten Tom Hanks for a cameo as a redemptive move for Mazes & Monsters. I bet he would have done it, especially since we’re talking late-career Hanks here.
Kind of an awesome weekend for religious movie-goers. Christians got to see His Only Son and Jesus Revolution and Satanists got Dungeons & Dragons.
I find it very fitting that His Only Son opened on April Fools weekend, since it’s basically the Bible’s version of this Norm MacDonald routine:(Skip to 3:57 — or don’t, and watch Norm’s whole set)
Jeremy Hardy has a damn funny bit involving that story in this routine, starting at 1:43:And with Easter coming up, his subsequent discussion of the crucifixion is relevant, too!
Wow. Jesus Revolution has now made more than $50 million. And it seems like most publications/websites didn’t even review it. That’s crazy and impressive.
Well, let’s not get carried away; it’s not like it’s within a few million of a major superhero movie.Oh, wait…
Faith-based movies usually have long legs. They don’t make a splash with a big opening number, but perform well week-to-week.
They get a lot of free advertising from the pulpit. Likely the marketing budgets include a fair number of “charitable contributions” to large-ish churches around the country. Much cheaper than 30 seconds in prime time.
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2023/04/02/dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-lets-the-good-times-roll/ Even without being a gamer, I enjoyed D&D a lot. It’s reminiscent of Guardians Of The Galaxy. Hopefully it’s more popular than Willow & SHAZAM! 2, which were also irreverent fantasy adventures. I don’t want grimdark fantasy to be the only option. Now please get everyone you know to start calling this movie DADHAT.
I plan to see Shazam! 2: Electric Boogaloo this Wednesday; I figure by now the crowds will have thinned out. Definitely looking forward to watching DADHAT in the near future as well.
Yes, by now, the movie that has done shitty numbers will have weeded out those large groups of moviegoers you are trying to avoid.You could have went week 2 on a Saturday and been happy with your crowd avoidance. Or just wait since it will be on streaming in like 2 and a half weeks.
Yes, by now, the movie that has done shitty numbers will have weeded out those large groups of moviegoers you are trying to avoid.
While watching every episode of Willow, I thought “This is a TTRPG game transcribed into scripts.”
Something something rolling a natural 20
I know that picking on 2023 AVClub is like a hobby for some people and I don’t want to be that guy, but this headline could be so much better so easily.“Dungeons & Dragons rolls a crit at the weekend box office.” There’s the joke without having to explain it in parentheses.
I’m looking forward to seeing DADHAT soon, it looks like a lot of fun.
Saw ‘D&D’ this weekend with some friends and had a blast. I wouldn’t say every joke was the best written thing, but there’s so much charisma oozing out of this cast (Pine and Rodriguez in particular have great, non-romantic chemistry) that they can sell each moment. That said, the “Xerk walking in a straight line” joke was just fantastic.
Yeah, we really enjoyed it. It really felt like a D&D campaign come to life. The characters were fun and enjoyable, the banter didn’t feel forced, and it had exactly my type of humor (e.g. the “talking to the dead” sequence). It didn’t feel like they shoehorned in D&D references, but made them fairly organic. Like, sure, this maze has a gelatinous cube in it, and a displacer beast, why not?I think probably my favorite thing was the big fat dragon, though. Like, why is he fat? Who cares? It’s hilarious.
That’s Themberchaud! There is actually a canonical reason from the game why he’s fat. Surreal that they would use him in a movie.
That fat dragon is going to do numbers on Tumblr, I can tell you that.
Did they play a game of giant-sized chess with the PCs as chess pieces? That’s in every fantasy movie.
“Oh wait , he’s going over it”.Also the easter egg with the third team in the maze was ( for old guys like me) a big surprise.
Yeah, that was a nice touch. I was hoping the cartoon would be acknowledged in some way, but was worried that the film would take itself too seriously to do so. So it was a pleasant surprise.
Agreed. The dialogue was reminiscent of what my group and I sound like (minus the Hollywood movie amplification, of course). The straight line joke was a good one. My favorite moments were the questioning the dead and the bard illusion glitch.
I haven’t played D&D in about 25 years. The opening weekend numbers certainly imply that it has the kind of broad appeal that means it’s accessible by someone like me and not just by people who either actively play or who have done so recently; since you saw it and enjoyed it, would you say that’s the case?
Absolutely. I don’t play D&D myself (apart from some of the video games like ‘Neverwinter Nights’ and ‘Torment’) but I have some familiarity because my big brother was a gamer back in the day. I have some friends who do play, some who like me have a little familiarity, and some who know nothing about it. We all had a great time with the film.
I would also confirm that it’s very accessible to folks who don’t play D&D. All of the fan service and in-jokes are so seamless and unassuming, there’s literally no distraction if you don’t notice them. This movie is how easter eggs should be done.
Is it appropriate for my daughter who is 12? She recently got into D&D and would love to see it.
I am terrible at figuring out what’s appropriate for children as I have no idea what rate they develop at. That said, I reckon she’d be okay. There are a couple of scenes with a spell that turns people undead that are mildly creepy, but not graphic. I think maybe the word “shit” is used once. Other than that I’d say it’s good family fun.
I’m a little let down that one of the characters weren’t killed off then came back with a slightly different name and stats. Anyway, this is Bam Sarbanti signing out.
It’s not that great a box office when the movie cost $150m. But I do hope they get a sequel.
yeah was gonna say its great that it won the weekend but that box office doesn’t sound THAT amazing. oh well just hope it makes enough to get a sequel
That’s basically been every semi-successful movie in a COVID world. Cost way too much, and made money that would have been a huge success in 1997 but is chump change today.
this was never gonna have a huge opening, but considering the word-of-mouth it could quietly leg out to be quite successful. opening weekend ain’t everything.
Clicking further in Box Office Mojo for D&DHAT, you’ll see it made over 70 million worldwide. It was 4th in China which is odd since they tend to lap up fantasy stuff like crazy. Still, I think this is a very strong start and week two may have another strong showing if word of mouth is effective.
good news shazam-heads, after 3 (4?) weeks shazam 2 it has finally earned as much money as the first one earned opening weekend.
shazam-headswe prefer to be called the “Billy Bat Bunch”
I wouldn’t call hitting the high end of a lukewarm projection to be a critical hit. The estimates are that it needs to do between 350-450 million just to break even. The test comes next weekend when Mario Brothers is released. If this falls off a cliff it will lose money.