D&D Movie/TV D&D Movie Moves Forward With Deal With Former Marvel Exec Jeremy Latcham

[Quartz]

It's already been established that this is a Forgotten Realms movie.

Oh dear. I hope that those making the film base it off the story Days of High Adventure. The story itself has elements of sex but those aren't necessary for a film. And the nastier bits can be off-camera.

The story starts with some roleplayers around a table playing a game of D&D. They accidentally invoke the name of a 'real' Stygian wizard from the era of Conan. The wizard draws two of them across time in the hope that they might be powerful allies and is disappointed.

The boy is sent as a slave to an underground excavation site / mine and the girl is kept as a drudge and future sacrifice. Unbeknownst to the wizard, the boy has absorbed the strength of the man (a Cimmerian IIRC) sacrificed in the summoning. The wizard is trying to enslave an ancient red dragon that was imprisoned many thousands of years earlier by pre-human creatures. The boy meets a Cimmerian girl (cue Conan joke) who trains him in swordplay.

Meanwhile, the girl doesn't let on that she can read and reads the spellbooks, discovering that magic really does work like D&D (cue D&D joke). The wizard forgets to close the connection (magic basin) to the dragon one day and the girl and the dragon make contact and it teaches her. The wizard has visitors and kills them. The girl uses this opportunity to escape and is given shelter in a temple of Derketo where she practices her craft and grows up.

In the mines, there is a breakthrough and monsters spill out and start attacking. In the chaos the boy and his girlfriend escape. They have escapades on the way to finding the girl. On meeting up they put together everything they know and set out to stop the wizard. They attack the wizard's tower, killing apprentices and garnering magic loot, but the wizard himself has penetrated the excavation site and is preparing the ritual. The ritual is interrupted but not before the dragon is freed. The dragon isn't interested in fighting the heroes - it has philosophically moved on from violence, conquest and the like (plot twist!) - and returns the three heroes to our time. The story even gives two inter-credits scenes: one where the Cimmerian is in a pub and someone tries to force his attentions on her and she gives him a bloody nose and more, and one where the girl goes to the DM's house where he is in the middle of a MMO raid (product tie in alert!). She then seduces him but he forgets to mute the microphone...

You could make the film both PG and 18 just by playing some scenes differently.

There would be plenty of opportunities for cameos. Arnold as King Conan, for instance. Perhaps a ruined snake temple.

Oh well, it's a missed opportunity.

 

[Eis]

There's another movie, albeit an older one, that can serve as a pseudo template for at least part of a DnD movie....actually a series of movies.....Indiana Jones

When Raiders of the Lost Ark came out I was in my early teens and boy did Harrison Ford making his way through the temple look familiar to this young dungeons and dragons player

He wasn't in armor and he didn't fight monsters, really, but the dungeon exploration was fantastic

 

[Traycor]

There's another movie, albeit an older one, that can serve as a pseudo template for at least part of a DnD movie....actually a series of movies.....Indiana Jones

When Raiders of the Lost Ark came out I was in my early teens and boy did Harrison Ford making his way through the temple look familiar to this young dungeons and dragons player

He wasn't in armor and he didn't fight monsters, really, but the dungeon exploration was fantastic

Indiana Jones is a great example of humor, adventure, and dungeon delving mystery. Seems to fit the tone they want really well for a D&D movie.

 

[Dausuul]

There's another movie, albeit an older one, that can serve as a pseudo template for at least part of a DnD movie....actually a series of movies.....Indiana Jones

When Raiders of the Lost Ark came out I was in my early teens and boy did Harrison Ford making his way through the temple look familiar to this young dungeons and dragons player

He wasn't in armor and he didn't fight monsters, really, but the dungeon exploration was fantastic

That... is brilliant. I had never thought of it that way, but you are exactly right: Each of the Indiana Jones movies is a D&D adventure. Travel to an ancient ruin or evil stronghold (wilderness encounters optional). Explore the site. Dodge traps. Fight monsters and/or bad guys. Retrieve the MacGuffin. Repeat until you get the Big MacGuffin and defeat the BBEG.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a better basis for the protagonists (wacky ensemble cast of different species), but Indiana Jones is the perfect basis for the plot.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That... is brilliant. I had never thought of it that way, but you are exactly right: Each of the Indiana Jones movies is a D&D adventure. Travel to an ancient ruin or evil stronghold (wilderness encounters optional). Explore the site. Dodge traps. Fight monsters and/or bad guys. Retrieve the MacGuffin. Repeat until you get the Big MacGuffin and defeat the BBEG.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a better basis for the protagonists (wacky ensemble cast of different species), but Indiana Jones is the perfect basis for the plot.

So, the D&D movie should have characters like GotG, a plot like Indiana Jones (not the 4th, though), and take place in the Forgotten Realms? Sounds legit, if the writers can do that.

 

[Traycor]

The story starts with some roleplayers around a table playing a game of D&D.

Doubt they'll go meta. If that was the angle they wanted, the novels would be written this way.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Doubt they'll go meta. If that was the angle they wanted, the novels would be written this way.

I agree. It probably won't be meta, that'd kind of make the story be less engaging to watch as an audience.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Doubt they'll go meta. If that was the angle they wanted, the novels would be written this way.

Unless Deadpool walks through a portal and shows up in Waterdeep.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So, the D&D movie should have characters like GotG, a plot like Indiana Jones (not the 4th, though), and take place in the Forgotten Realms? Sounds legit, if the writers can do that.

Did you not notice that the opening sequence of GotG is almost the same as the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

One feature that occurred to me about GotG is there are no "1st level characters". All the party members are experienced adventurers of similar ability levels when they meet.

 

[Traycor]

I do wonder if they're still planning the Hasbro cinematic universe that was floated years ago. You know, where we get G.I. Joe, Transformers, ROM, and the Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, I don't know, facing off against Tiamat.

When the last big Transformers movie (before Bumblebee) was a dud money wise, this went away. Before that, they were seen as the bullet-proof, billion dollar franchise. They've been deciding on a new way forward for years.

Between D&D, G.I. Joe, Magic The Gathering, and Transformers, they are just now regrouping from the fallout of all that.