DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES Might Still Get a Sequel, and the Script Is Already Finished

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves deserved better. The 2023 fantasy adventure was awesome and it had a great cast, a wonderfully ridiculous sense of humor, memorable creatures, and enough genuine heart to make its band of dysfunctional heroes worth rooting for.

The movie just didn’t hit at the box office the way the studio had hoped. But there’s some unexpected good news for fans who have been waiting for another adventure. A script foe a sequel has already been written, and while Paramount-Skydance isn’t moving forward with it, the project apparently isn’t dead.

The first film arrived in March 2023 with a reported $150 million budget and Chris Pine leading the cast. Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein turned the world of D&D into a fantasy heist movie that worked for longtime players and people who had never rolled a twenty-sided die in their lives.

Critics and audiences responded well to the film, but Honor Among Thieves finished its theatrical run with only $208.2 million worldwide. Once production and marketing costs were factored in, those numbers weren’t enough to make the movie a financial success.

The frustrating part is that more people eventually found Honor Among Thieves through streaming and home viewing, helping the movie develop a passionate following after its theatrical run was already over.

During an appearance on The Discourse podcast from The Playlist, Goldstein revealed that he and Daley completed a screenplay for a sequel. Paramount-Skydance passed on financing it, but Hasbro is apparently interested in finding another studio partner.

“I think Hasbro is a big believer in it, and if they can figure out a studio partner to make it work, they’ll want to proceed. As are our producers,” Goldstein said.

So there’s a.Dungeons & Dragons sequel screenplay sitting there, ready to go if Hasbro can find someone willing to pay for the adventure. Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly the kind of movie you make with pocket change.

“Yes, there are practical realities with the finance contingent, and who knows if it ever gets made, but we were proud of the sequel script and hope that at some point it does find a path,” Daley added.

Goldstein also explained why writing a second movie opened up some fun possibilities. “I mean, look, it’s something that is near and dear to our hearts in that we loved making the first one,” Goldstein said.

“We fell in love with the characters, and there’s so much potential in a sequel because the first act isn’t filled with exposition or introduction to this family that we’ve already become accustomed to. So you can kind of launch right into the story, which is really nice.”

The first movie had to introduce its characters, relationships, rules, and fantasy world while getting the main quest moving.

A second film could throw the party straight into trouble and spend more time on the monsters, magic, heists, disasters, and questionable decision-making that made Honor Among Thieves such a blast.

Daley also believes the original film suffered from some lousy circumstances surrounding its release.“It was very much a product of not-so-great timing when the first movie came out,” Daley added, talking about the distribution hurdles that damaged Honor Among Thieves‘ box office.

“It came out four days before the Super Mario movie, which broke records. It came out a month after Wizards of the Coast changed the official gaming license, prompting many D&D fans to boycott the game, and I don’t think the marketing did enough to tell people who weren’t already fans that this movie might be for them. Yeah, so it was a perfect storm of all of those elements, and we’ll see.”

The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened only four days after Honor Among Thieves and became a monster hit, earning more than $1.3 billion worldwide.

There was also trouble brewing within the D&D community before the film arrived. A leaked draft of Wizards of the Coast’s proposed Open Game License changes surfaced on January 5, 2023, raising concerns about restrictions on third-party D&D content and triggering a major backlash and organized boycott among fans.

The situation is different now. The biggest question is whether Hasbro can find a studio willing to finance it.

Hopefully somebody rolls high enough on persuasion, because Pine and the rest of this wonderfully chaotic party deserve another campaign.