Thunderfoot
Hero
Four words ....GODS ....I ....HOPE .....NOT!!!!! No, you're welcome.
Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2011)
Four words ....GODS ....I ....HOPE .....NOT!!!!! No, you're welcome.
Thunderfoot
Hero
I can think of three reasons this wouldn't fly.:
1) The story is way too intricate to put on acetate. Batman is re-launched three times, Superman look like its getting yet another re-launch, etc, And each re-launch tells the evolution of the character to ensure that everyone knows it, which is a good assumption because everyone doesn't know the evolution of these iconic superheroes. You can't assume everyone knows their backstory story that will see the movie, because not everyone will. Think how big a hit Iron Man was and how many people saw it that had zero interest in the comic book. (let's face it Iron Man was a second rate title compared to some other Marvel staples.) It started with fans yes, but it grew daily because it was a great movie.
2) The budget is too limited. With a big story arc you need dedicated funds to continue the story to make it manageable, otherwise you end up with a single movie trying to tell an entire story that should span multiple movies in less than two hours. In other words, you get DUNE. Great novels, great acting in the movie, the movie was way too short to explain what the heck was going on. Cult classic, yes, great film for all time, not even in consideration.
3) Star Vehicle limitations - the first movie had great star power with three very well known named actors/actresses playing big parts, and all that money for production went right in their pockets and starved the real reason for the movie, to tell a story. In order to propel a story arc like the one you propose you may be able to get away with shooting the first movie with a bunch of unknowns, but by the second and third movie they will demand larger salaries and if the movies are only marginal, well, see the first movie.
I agree that they need a good story and one that will appeal to fans, but it also has to appeal to non-fans. Someone suggested Dragonlance - I wouldn't watch that if you paid me, I think Weis & Hickman are hacks. I realize I am in the minority, but considering the lack of D&D movie support so far, every ticket counts, so you cannot polarize your audience.
Your idea has merit if you focus on one character, Drizzt for instance would probably be a good one to start with, telling about his crawl out of the underdark, maybe introducing one or two other characters in a limited capacity and then building on it. But you are banking a lot on the success of the first one to continue to generate income for any sequels, and as we saw with the first one, one misstep causes the whole thing to become a niche project.
I have a feeling that unless someone in Hollywood comes up with a very large personal amount of money to fund a big budget D&D movie, we should just get used to small screen one-off throw aways and probably be thankful we are getting those.
And after his 3 year stint in the Fed's Tax Pen, Wesley Snipes will portray that role with a depth that will earn him an OSCAR!
Really, though, I think they should *ahem* redeem the D&D movie brand name a bit by going small screen: a good, well scripted miniseries or series that can launch the occasional major miniseries or TV movie, and THEN a big screen adaptation.*
Ancient Alcatrazian Secret: First learn walk, then learn run.
* Marvel Comics did this, most recently with Mutant X, a thinly veiled reworking of the X-Men books...
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Ahnehnois
First Post
You're not the only one. To be fair I've only read one Dragonlance book many years ago, but I never found any of the D&D-based novels very interesting. They may or may not have any merit but D&D is about creating your own stories.
...which is part of the problem in creating a successful D&D movie. When they made the LoTR series, they had one fairly unified set of source material to work from, and they produced an interpretation that a large number of people found acceptably faithful. In contrast, there's no agreement as to what is good in D&D or even what D&D is; it's a very fractured fan base. When they made the first movie, 3e was a reasonably obvious choice, but now it's not clear what edition you'd base it on.
Personally, I don't want a D&D movie based on the novels, I don't want one that has anything to do with 4e, and I don't want one that's PG-13. Of course, these are all things that make movies marketable. They already tried making an "original" movie and they blew it. No one is likely to put big money towards that again and small money is not going to make a great movie. Here's hoping for Baldur's Gate: the Movie...
Knightfall
World of Kulan DM
FYI... the IMDb page notes that the movie is now in post-production.
Which means it will be in pre-immolation any time now!
I'm not a big fan of most of his movies, but Stranger than Fiction is quite good.
Similarly with Adam Sandler, Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me were very nice, and I admit to having a soft spot for Happy Gilmour and The Wedding Singer.
I still haven't even bothered to watch the second one, despite having it given to me as an owner of a DVD rental store. I never bothered to put it on the shelf either 'cause I didn't think it was worth the $0.15 for the security tag and lockable case.
Hell, I wouldn't even waste bandwidth downloading it. I highly doubt that number three in this series is going to warrant any more attention than the previous two.
Hell, I wouldn't even waste bandwidth downloading it. I highly doubt that number three in this series is going to warrant any more attention than the previous two.
Quickleaf
Legend
D&D 2 was no worse than a 90-minute episode of Hercules or Xena. It still had many flaws, but it also had Ellie Chidzley as Lux the Barbarian, and that's okay in my book!
Well she can't portray a skilled warrior but she sure can play a stripper/writing critic.
"All I'm saying is that if you can't fit your idea into the first line then it's too diffuse."
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