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Plenty of movies stumble at the box office only to find a real audience once they land on streaming. That is just the state of cinema right now. Annihilation failed at the box office before turning into a genuine cult favorite on streaming. The Suicide Squad had a similarly rough theatrical run before streaming gave it new life. Now, three years after struggling in cinemas, one of Paramount's most criminally underseen fantasy adventures has officially found redemption on streaming.
The film follows Chris Pineas a charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers as they undertake a heist to retrieve a lost relic, only for things to go dangerously wrong when they run afoul of the wrong people. It was meant to launch a massive multi-platform universe complete with spin-offs, but those plans quickly fell apart after its disappointing theatrical run. The film made just $208.2 million worldwide against a $150 million production budget. Since the general rule of thumb is that a movie needs to earn about twice its budget to be considered a real success, that box office haul left it well short.
The film is Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Jonathan GoldsteinandJohn Francis Daley directed it from a screenplay they co-wrote with Michael Gilio, based on the titular tabletop game. The movie dropped on the free streamer Pluto TV on June 1, and even a month later, it is still holding the spotlight. According to FlixPatrol, it is currently the #9 most popular movie on Pluto TV in the United States.
Why Did ‘Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ Fail at the Box Office?
The movie's box office stumble is even more baffling considering how good it actually is. It is incredibly funny, backed by great CGI and phenomenal action sequences. It very much feels like a Guardians of the Galaxy movie set inside the D&D universe. The film opened to raving reviews and still holds a 91% critic rating along with an even stronger 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans have spent plenty of time speculating about why it flopped, and most of the blame lands on weak marketing. Many people still do not know this movie exists, and even fewer did when it actually released in theaters.
The trailers also made it look like a run-of-the-mill MCU copycat when it actually turned out to be leagues better. And it also didn’t help that it came out alongside The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which ended up becoming 2023’s second-highest-grossing movie. Whoever is really to blame, Paramount clearly does not think it was the directors' fault. Since the movie’s release, Goldstein and Daley have gone on to find great opportunities in Hollywood. The duo is currently developing Paramount’s next Star Trek movie. And Apple TV just unveiled the first trailer for their upcoming Cold War action-comedy Mayday, starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is available to stream on Pluto TV. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
