Hasbro is in search of a purchaser to buy eOne, the studio behind Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves.
Hasbro is trying to promote eOne, an leisure division the corporate acquired in 2019. In keeping with The Hollywood Reporter, Darren Throop, eOne’s authentic founder, is in talks to make the acquisition. The eOne banner has produced and distributed hundreds of widespread titles, together with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves, The Girl King, and Yellowjackets.
Hasbro bought eOne for a whopping $4 billion, however final November, the corporate signaled that it was trying to promote the division. Hasbro, like many main media corporations, is specializing in franchises. Any sale of eOne that Hasbro agrees to will possible see the toy conglomerate hold onto pillars like Peppa Pig, the Transformers franchise, and Dungeons & Dragons.
Underneath its new CEO Chris Cocks, Hasbro can also be looking forward to turn into a key participant within the digital video games house. Promoting eOne, which includes itself with one-off movies like Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans alongside its franchise content material, would permit Hasbro extra sources to dedicate to its hottest manufacturers.
2019 was not that way back, however so much has modified since that point. When Hasbro bought eOne, it had a sport plan to turn into one of many largest Hollywood gamers. The COVID-19 pandemic and the passing of the corporate’s CEO Brian Goldner in 2021 threw large wrenches into Hasbro’s media technique.
Now Hasbro is shifting focus but once more to accommodate the quickly altering tides of the trade. The corporate is, in a means, simplifying. By promoting off eOne, it might reinvest that capital right into a extra concentrated slate of dependable performers from its checklist of profitable franchises.
What does that imply for audiences? It possible implies that Hasbro will double down on acquainted titles shifting ahead, bringing forth extra Transformers, extra Dungeons & Dragons, and much more Peppa.
There has not been a Transformers film in theaters since Bumblebee in 2018. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will reignite the robo-mayhem when it releases this June. The newest installment stars franchise newcomers Anthony Ramos, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Ron Perlman, Pete Davidson, and Peter Cullen, who returns to voice Optimus Prime.
Earlier than it was offered to Hasbro, eOne was a profitable unbiased studio. If the corporate does find yourself again within the arms of Darren Throop, it will likely be an organization reworked by Hasbro’s extraction of a few of the firm’s most beneficial property. That will put eOne’s focus again squarely on bringing authentic movies to the lots.
eOne has been concerned in acclaimed films like Highlight, Logan Fortunate, 1917, and X. Nonetheless on its slate in its partnership with Hasbro are Rise of the Beasts, a 2024 animated Transformers movie, and one other G.I. Joe venture. What Throop decides to do with eOne past that time remains to be a thriller, however given the corporate’s monitor document, there are possible many authentic movies nonetheless to return.
Main Hollywood gamers have been shuffling the deck in huge methods recently as seismic shifts proceed to quake by means of the movie and TV trade. A few of these strikes have movie followers involved about the way forward for the trade, however the Hasbro sale of eOne may very well be one which makes for higher indies and studio tentpoles alike.