Entertainment
How The Best Fantasy Movie Of The Decade Was Destroyed By Corporate Greed
By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated
The most successful fantasy films of all time, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter, have reigned at the top of the mountain for decades, yet the genre has experienced a resurgence in recent years thanks to the rise of podcasts. Actual play podcasts featuring players going through a tabletop RPG have become one of the hottest genres of the new medium, and the best of them, including Critical Role, Dimension 20, and Not Another D&D Podcast, were based on Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition.
You’d think that 2023’s Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the best fantasy movie of the last decade, would have become a hit, but instead it disappointed at the box office (ironically, thanks to the franchise owner, Wizards of the Coast, horrible timing). Now it’s finally developing a following.
A Tabletop Adventure On The Big Screen
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves picks up after the adventuring party of Edvin the Bard (Chris Pine), Holga the Barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez), Simon the Sorcerer (Justice Smith), Doric the Druid (Sophia Lillis), and Forge the Thief (Hugh Grant) were betrayed by the obviously evil wizard Sofina (Daisy Head). Out for revenge, Evin and Holga get the band back together, go into an actual dungeon complete with a dragon, and pull off a fantastical heist.
The film has everything fans of the game have wanted to see on the big screen for decades, including an aarakocra and a cameo appearance by the characters from the 80s Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon. Actual spells from the tabletop game are used, and real mechanics were played out.
All of this helped make the rollicking adventure feel like someone’s homebrew campaign brought to life. Even for those who don’t play the tabletop game, the comedy beats all and makes it a fun fantasy adventure.
Why Dungeons & Dragons Failed To Find A Big Theater Audience
Mere weeks before Honor Among Thieves was released, Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Dungeons and Dragons, did something so heinous it caused a boycott by fans. For more than 20 years, the game had operated under the Open Gaming License (OGL).
That OGL let independent writers and small companies create adventures, rulebooks, podcasts, and entire businesses built around D&D without fear of being shut down. And Wizards of the Coast decided to end it all.
A leaked draft of a new license Wizards of the Coast was planning appeared online. The Open Game License was being changed so that Wizards would get a 25 percent cut of everything fans earn when a creator makes more than $750,000 from monetizing the game. Worse still, the new terms would ban all online tabletop simulators and allow Wizards of the Coast to claim sole ownership of anything created by fans.
This leak of the company’s plans sparked a firestorm in the Dungeons & Dragons community. Core fans revolted en masse. An organic, fan-driven boycott of the company and everything it was involved with began. That boycott included the movie, meaning the group of people Hollywood expected as the film’s core supporters were not only avoiding it, but actively campaigning to keep it from being seen. It worked.
The film received a favorable response from those who saw it, with a 91 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes from over 300 reviews by critics and a matching 92 percent from over 2,000 reviews by the public. Yet Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves underperformed, barely squeaking by with $200 million worldwide. That failure is undeniable, but it’s not the fault of the movie. Honor Among Thieves was destroyed by the greed of the company that owns its IP.
The backlash became so intense that Wizards eventually reversed course and released key D&D rules under a Creative Commons license, making them far harder to control in the future. But that change was too late to save Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Standing On Its Own
Removed from the drama of early 2023, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves can now stand on its own merit. Thanks to streaming, audiences are watching and enjoying the movie.
Unfortunately, the movie’s weak performance destroyed the hope of a sequel. However, if Honor Among Thieves continues to gain a much-deserved cult following, there’s always a chance that the writer/director duo of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who also worked with Pine on Horrible Bosses 2) will get another chance to bring the game to life.
Whether Honor Among Thieves gets the sequel it deserves or not, thanks to streaming, fans can enjoy the funniest fantasy movie since Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and newcomers can get a taste of what it’s like to play the most popular tabletop role-playing game in the world.
Entertainment
Final days to lock in your favorite Microsoft Office apps for life for just $33
TL;DR: Get a Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows lifetime license for $32.97 through Aug. 9 and enjoy Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, OneNote, and Teams with a one-time purchase.
$32.97
$219.99
Save $187.02
This is your last chance to ditch Microsoft 365’s subscription fees for good. Through Aug. 9, you can grab a lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2021 for much less than its usual retail price. Simply pay once, download the full software suite, and never worry about renewals again.
We know what you’re thinking, but rest assured, this isn’t some stripped-down lite version either. It’s the real deal. Whether you’re writing reports, crunching numbers, building presentations, managing emails, or wrangling databases, the lifetime version of Microsoft Office has you covered.
Mashable Deals
It’s a one-time download for one Windows PC, so once it’s yours, it’s yours. The full pro-level toolkit, minus the stress of a subscription. Plus, with instant license delivery and free customer support, getting started is as painless as your new spreadsheet workflow.
No more “trial expired” pop-ups. No more surprise charges. Just the latest versions of Microsoft’s best apps, ready to support all of your work and personal needs.
Mashable Deals
Download Microsoft Office for Windows while it’s on sale for $32.97 (reg. $219.99) until Aug. 9 at 11:59 p.m. PT. No coupon is needed.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Entertainment
One dashboard, 20+ AI models — get ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and more for $79
TL;DR: Pay $79 once (reg. $619) for ChatPlayground AI Unlimited Lifetime and compare 20+ leading AI models side by side, chat with PDFs and images, and generate AI art.
Credit: ChatPlayground AI
If you’ve ever copied the same prompt into three different AI tools just to see which one gives the best answer, you’re not alone. Different models excel at different things — but juggling tabs and subscriptions gets old fast.
ChatPlayground AI puts the top AI models in one place, so you can compare responses side by side without the back-and-forth. For a limited time, a lifetime subscription is on sale for $79 (reg. $619).
GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, Perplexity, and more — all in one clean interface. It’s built for people who iterate fast, test variations, and actually care about optimizing results.
Beyond comparisons, ChatPlayground AI includes prompt engineering tools to refine outputs, image and PDF chat for context-aware responses, saved chat history for ongoing projects, and AI image generation powered by leading models. There’s even a Chrome extension to integrate it directly into your browsing workflow.
The Unlimited Plan means unlimited messages per month, making it ideal for startups, product teams, marketers, and prompt engineers who run experiments nonstop. You also get priority support and early access to new features and future models.
If you’re already paying for multiple AI tools — or constantly switching between them — this consolidates everything into one streamlined platform.
Mashable Deals
Grab lifetime access to ChatPlayground AI Unlimited for $79 (reg. $619) and stop juggling models for good.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Topics
Artificial Intelligence
Entertainment
The best Dyson vacuums actually make vacuuming fun: See my favorites for 2026
Read my full review of the Dyson PencilVac.
The Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones takes the small space vacuum to a whole new level. It’s unbelievably slim and lightweight, and seamlessly scoots into tight crevices near furniture that don’t get dusted often enough. If there are certain spots in your home that you avoid cleaning just because it’s too tight of a squeeze, the PencilVac is about to change your life.
“Fluffy” references the ultra-soft material cushioning the four brush rolls, which provide a gloriously glide on hardwood you don’t want to scratch. The PencilVac’s short battery life and limited suction power wouldn’t be ideal in homes with more than just a few rooms or lots of carpeting.
No stick vacuum takes “stick” as literally as the Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones. It doesn’t have a main body with a battery pack, handle, or dustbin like any other traditional cordless vacuum. It’s just a wand and a funky cleaning head with four microfiber cones as brush rolls — the coolest little vacuum that’s truly grab and go.
The whole vacuum can fit just about anywhere, and tight squeezes are even more accessible with a cleaning head that can spin a full 360 degrees. The agile design led me to so many awkward dusty spots that other cordless vacuums can’t comfortably reach: the small chunks of floor between furniture and the wall, between island and bar stool legs, beside the toilet, or under the low-hanging credenza. The PencilVac had commendable hard floor performance in my apartment, offering near-perfect pickup of daily debris like cat hair and long human hair, kitchen crumbs, multiple types of cat litter, and dust.
Oh yeah, the Fluffycones cleaning head has two dust-detecting lasers. One laser projects out the front to point out the hair and tiny flecks lying ahead, and one laser projects out the back to illuminate anything that you just missed. It’s so satisfying that you’ll accidentally end up cleaning for much longer than you meant to, only to be cut off by the pitiful battery life.
With the precision nozzle wand attached, the PencilVac weighs in at just 2.9 pounds. This uniquely compact design makes cleaning cobwebs out of ceiling corners or dusting baseboards so much less of a pain. The wand’s diameter is just 1.5 inches the entire way down, which made it possible to vacuum behind my dresser without pulling it out a foot from the wall.
Jays turn to Max Scherzer to keep Cardinals in downward spiral
Pirates Mitch Keller hungry for wins, while Reds Chase Burns chases history
