Another good one for tracking the mess that is D&D. I feel the underwhelming D&D movie killed this, followed by the fire sale of their movie studio. We have a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds situation now, with a passionate creator and an owner who sits on the IP. He even offered to buy the IP with investors.
The title should be "Wizards sale of media company cancels" - since this was likely in production by the media company they sold and was likely canceled after the sale. I doubt D&D or Wizards had much to do with it at this point in time. However, I feel the mismanagement and collapse of streaming ended this project, so it can be traced back if you go far enough.
And we get a lackluster module and a failed board game. The company must gain the self-control to hand the reigns to their partners and let them develop an idea. They will churn out books that undermine and devalue their IP just for a few sales. I feel the D&D movie was the same thing; profit now over quality. Spelljammer seemed plagued by this too, rushed out, and obvious glaring issues ignored.
Every release these days devalues their IP.
The authors of Dragonlance are still with us, but those bridges are burned.
One TV show could rocket you into a billion-dollar valuation. Everything they own is a Star Wars-level IP, built-in nostalgia, and proven to drive interest in other properties. You need to play Hollywood's game.
I would have started with novels by the original creators and gotten those on the NYT Bestsellers lists. Build a world. Introduce this to a new generation. Build passion and excitement. Bring in writers, but have them work with the creators to build a larger shared universe with a creative vision.
Better yet, sell the idea; nothing will become of it here. The value of this only goes down from here. Like the Realms, I hope these get sold to people who care while we still have the original creators with us.
When a creative company loses the ability to create and dream, the ability to explore an idea and make it come alive in a community, you should quietly head to the lifeboats.
No comments:
Post a Comment