10 Awesome 2023 Movies That Didn't Deserve To Flop

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves just might be the saddest box office story of the entire year, honestly.

Amid low expectations, the fantasy comedy released to effusively positive reviews and even nabbed an "A-" CinemaScore from those who actually bothered to see it - which, evidently, wasn't enough.

Against a hefty $150 million budget, the big-screen DND adaptation grossed just $208.2 million, barely half of what it needed for Paramount to confidently greenlight a sequel.

It wasn't a perfect film by any means, but it had enormous reverence for the source material, a ton of heart, and committed performances from its ensemble cast.

This had all the makings of a hit on paper, yet folks just didn't show up for it. You can blame so-so marketing and a poor release date - hitting cinemas days before The Super Mario Bros. movie sucked all the oxygen out of the room - yet Paramount's biggest mistake was the excessive budget.

Greenlighting a mega-budget DND movie was... a choice, and they probably should've scaled it back to a more modest price tag of around $70-100 million.

Sure, it would've seen the production values take a hit, but it would've also stood a much stronger chance of getting a higher-budget sequel.