D&D: Honor Among Thieves Directors Blame Timing, Confirm Warlock Game for 2027

Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have confirmed what many suspected: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a victim of brutal timing rather than audience rejection. The film opened in March 2023, just four days before The Super Mario Bros. Movie shattered box office records, and barely a month after Wizards of the Coast ignited a community firestorm by rewriting the Open Gaming License. Daley told The Discourse Podcast that the "perfect storm" of competition and fan anger drowned a movie that has since found its audience on streaming. For players who skipped theaters but caught it later, the directors' candor validates that the film's quality wasn't the problem — the calendar was.

Paramount ultimately passed on a sequel for financial reasons, but both directors remain hopeful another studio will step in. Goldstein noted that Hasbro believes in the franchise and wants to proceed if a partner can make the numbers work. Daley added that a sequel would benefit from skipping the heavy exposition required in the first act, letting the story launch straight into adventure with characters the filmmakers have already grown attached to. Meanwhile, the D&D universe expands elsewhere: a live-action Ravenloft series is officially in development at Netflix, and a brand-new third-person action-adventure game titled Dungeons & Dragons: Warlock is targeting a 2027 release.

The Timing Problem

Daley laid out the convergence of factors that sank the theatrical run. "It came out four days before the Super Mario movie, which broke records," he said. "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." The OGL controversy erupted in January 2023 when leaked changes suggested Wizards would restrict third-party content creation, triggering mass cancellations of D&D Beyond subscriptions and a unified community backlash. Though Wizards reversed course within weeks, the damage to goodwill coincided exactly with the film's marketing push. For a movie built on fan enthusiasm, that erosion of trust mattered.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie factor cannot be overstated. Opening four days after Honor Among Thieves, it vacuumed up family audiences and dominated cultural conversation for weeks. Daley's admission that marketing failed to reach non-fans underscores a deeper issue: the film needed a broad coalition to succeed, but the core fanbase was distracted and alienated simultaneously. This wasn't a quality problem — critics gave it a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score and audiences graded it an A- CinemaScore — but a visibility problem at the worst possible moment.

What Comes Next for D&D on Screen and in Games

Despite the sequel's uncertain fate, the franchise is moving forward on multiple fronts. Netflix is developing a prestige live-action series set in Ravenloft, the gothic-horror domain ruled by vampire Darklord Strahd von Zarovich. Described as a blend of adventure, gothic horror, and tragic romance, the show will explore Strahd's origin — a rich vein of lore that has never been adapted for television. This signals Hasbro's strategy: diversify across platforms rather than bet everything on a single film franchise.

On the gaming side, Dungeons & Dragons: Warlock represents a significant new entry. Slated for 2027, the third-person action-adventure title marks a departure from recent D&D games like Baldur's Gate 3 (turn-based RPG) and Dark Alliance (co-op action). A warlock-focused protagonist suggests a magic-heavy, pact-driven combat system built around eldritch invocations and patron mechanics — a natural fit for real-time action. With a 2027 window, the game likely targets current-gen consoles and PC, though no platforms have been confirmed. For players, this means a new way to experience D&D's mechanics outside the tabletop, and potentially a single-player narrative campaign that doesn't require a coordinated group.

The directors' honesty about the first film's struggles is refreshing in an industry that often spins flops into "cult classics" retroactively. They acknowledge the marketing shortfall, the external disasters, and the financial reality that killed the sequel — yet they still believe in the characters and the world. That conviction, paired with Hasbro's willingness to license Ravenloft to Netflix and greenlight Warlock, suggests the D&D multimedia push is far from over. Whether a second film ever materializes depends on a studio partner seeing what Daley and Goldstein see: a ready-made ensemble, a proven tone, and a fanbase that showed up — just a few weeks late.