Trivia / Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

• Acclaimed Flop: Despite general praise from both critics and general audiences, the film grossed just $208.2 million worldwide off of a $150 million budget (potential reasons why listed below under Screwed by the Network). With around half of that gross going to the theaters, the various production companies involved all failed to recoup their investment in the initial theatrical window, though the creators remain optimistic that its positive reception will lead to more people discovering it at home.
• Approval of God: Despite not being involved in the production or credited for his work, Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood loved the movie, saying it was a film that D&D fans could be proud of without having to defend the game to non-fans, and he even mentioned that he planned on seeing it multiple times. He was also happy to see his creation adapted faithfully on the big screen.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Chris Pine agreed to appear because the role of Edgin is very atypical for a fantasy-film leading man and because he sat in on his nephew playing a D&D campaign and saw how much fun he and his friends were having.
• Billing Displacement: Regé-Jean Page is billed third despite Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis having more prominent roles.
• Box Office Bomb: A gross of $208.2 million worldwide against a budget of $150 million might sound like a mild success, but since that gross was split with theaters and the budget doesn't include marketing and distribution costs, the movie still failed to turn a profit and likely cost Parmount tens of millions. As a result, the plans for a bigger movie franchise are on indefinite hold, though Paramount CEO Brian Robbins says a second film could still be made if done on a smaller budget.
• The Cast Show Off: Chris Pine had previously demonstrated his singing, and does so again when Edgin performs a song to distract the guards.
• Colbert Bump: Themberchaud, the massive red dragon of the Northdark, got a huge wave of attention for his comically obese physique despite having existed in Dungeons & Dragons since 2nd edition.
• Early-Bird Release: The film was released in some parts of Europe and Latin America during the first few weeks of March 2023.
• Fake Brit: While obviously there's no Britain in D&D, American actor Justice Smith is the only cast member not using his natural accent, to the point that even Hugh Grant thought he was a fellow Brit at first.
• Hostility on the Set: Minor example. Hugh Grant confessed to losing his temper at a woman in his sights whom he assumed was a studio executive "who should have known better", not realizing she was the chaperone for Chloe Coleman. He did a lot of "groveling" to apologize.
• Inspiration for the Work: Co-director/writer John Francis Daley claimed that while brainstorming the script and coming up with an approach to adapt Dungeons & Dragons that would be easily accessible for non-fans, primary influences included The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings, but perhaps most important for the film's structure: Indiana Jones. Daley cited Indiana Jones as forming a bridge between "dungeon-crawling fantasy" with the "heist film" format mainstream audiences would be familiar with, and by making Honor Among Thieves its own fantasy-oriented heist film, it would help ease the uninitiated into the world of the franchise "without being overwhelmed by lore or proper nouns" while also evoking the spirit of the game of strangers coming together to solve a mission via dungeon crawl.
• Newbie Boom: The film is easily the biggest bump in popularity for Dungeons & Dragons in quite a few years, especially when it comes to people who are completely green to the hobby. And as always with such bumps, it also trickled down to other TTRPGs.
• The Other Marty: Bradley Cooper's cameo was originally filled by an "unnamed director", who was dropped because John Francis Daley wanted to work with the former again after they had collaborated on Kitchen Confidential. It was achieved by filming him against a blue screen, with John Francis Daley reading the lines instead of Michelle Rodriguez.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Daisy Head, known for playing flawed but sympathetic heroines, plays a heartless sorceress.
  • It's a surprise to see Bradley Cooper cameoing as Holga's ex-husband, playing the former in a Tiny Guy, Huge Girl pairing.
• Playing with Character Type:
  • The film plays with the normal Michelle Rodriguez casting type as the more masculine Action Girl in comparison to a more feminine lady that normally dies. She does die and is the only protagonist to die, but Edgin then opts to resurrect her instead of his deceased wife.
  • Hugh Grant is the same bumbling genial debonair gentleman we all know and love and also happens to be planning to zombify an entire city and steal all their money.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Part of the negative marketing done by the anti-fandom was spreading the rumour that the cameo by the kids from the cartoon would only be used for their brutal, on-screen deaths as a sort of Take That, Audience! aimed against "real fans" and "true players". And then keep going with it, even after the movie premiered and the notion turned out to be patently false. It went so far that people who didn't know about the whole negative marketing started discussing Uncertain Doom regarding their fates.
• Posthumous Credit:
  • Brian Goldner, the late CEO of Hasbro, is credited as a producer on the film. The movie was released almost a year and a half after his death.
  • Kim Mohan, a long-time editor for the D&D line going all the way back to when he was one of the early employees of TSR, and who returned to the line at Wizards of the Coast, is credited as Lore Advisor. Mohan died on December 12, 2022, 4 months before the film's release.
• Promoted Fangirl: Michelle Rodriguez has spoken about frequently playing D&D.
• Release Date Change: Due to a combination of the COVID-19 Pandemic and wanting to accommodate Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (which also kept moving back), Paramount moved the release of the film from November 19, 2021, to May 27, 2022, then to March 3, 2023, before finally settling on March 31 of that same year. This delay likely contributed to the quality and polish of most of the film's visual effects despite a relatively modest budget, but also set the movie into a completely unintentional Dueling Works situation against John Wick: Chapter 4 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which directly contributed to Honor severely underperforming.
• Saved from Development Hell: Work on another theatrical Dungeons & Dragons project began in 2013 after a long legal battle between Warner Bros. and Universal over the rights to the game; neither wound up actually getting the project off the ground, leaving Hasbro to turn the reins to Paramount in 2017, who themselves had to go through multiple scripts and director candidates and the COVID-19 Pandemic before they could complete filming in the summer of 2021.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: Doric's character design, sticking closer to older editions' take on tieflings. While it is a viable explanation, the real reason is that filming Sophia Lillis with minimal make-up and a horned headband was simply easier and significantly cheaper than doing the exotic, clearly inhuman, prosthetics-and-CGI heavy Amazing Technicolor Population.
• Screwed by the Network: Paramount's decision to push the film over a year past its original planned release to March 31, 2023, was seen by many as either a massive blunder or the studio giving up on the project. That date sandwiched the film between John Wick: Chapter 4 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, both movies from extremely popular franchises that would directly compete for the core D&D audience of action, fantasy, and gaming fans. Positive word of mouth for Honor Among Thieves led to it slightly outperforming expectations in its opening weekend, but any chance of the film continuing to gather the grassroots support it would need to reach profitability was dashed when Mario, already anticipated to be a box office juggernaut, greatly outperformed those lofty expectations the following weeks.^note Some box office observers have pointed with hindsight to late summer 2022, which lacked any tentpole franchise releases after mid-July and had a severely depressed box office as a result, as a far better window for a slow-burn release like the one Honor Among Thieves seemed best suited for.
• Throw It In!: The scene where Xenk leaves the party on the beach, walking away in a straight line even over a rock, was caused by Regé-Jean Page not hearing "cut!" and continuing to walk away while staying in character, with Chris Pine ad-libbing as he watched.
• Typecasting: Hugh Grant is essentially reprising his role from Paddington 2 here. In his final scene at the prison, you could be forgiven for expecting him to break into a rendition of "Rain on the Roof".
• Voice-Only Cameo: In the European French dub, Fred and Seb from Joueur du Grenier voiced the questioned undead.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A number of filmmakers had previously been attached to the film, including Rob Letterman and Chris McKay (who holds a story credit).
  • Joe Manganiello was attached for a long time to star, as was Ansel Elgort, likely as Edgin and Simon respectively.
  • Word of God is that they originally wanted the Monty Python cast to provide the voices of the corpses that Simon resurrects. It never came about because of "financial limitations" and some of the cast have passed away.
  • Xenk's role was originally meant for famous D&D character Drizzt, but he had to be replaced due to an "unnamed controversy". As a result, the large city in the Underdark was originally intended to be Menzoberranzan, Drizzt's hometown.

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