D&D Movie/TV Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith Join D&D Movie

From Comic Book Movies -- "Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar) and Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu) have joined Wonder Woman 1984's Chris Pine in Paramount and eOne's upcoming big-budget board game adaptation, Dungeons & Dragons..."

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Michelle Rodriguez And Justice Smith Join Chris Pine In Fantasy Adaptation

Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar) and Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu) have joined Wonder Woman 1984's Chris Pine in Paramount and eOne's upcoming big-budget board game adaptation, Dungeons & Dragons...

www.comicbookmovie.com

We learned in December about Chris Pine's involvement, along with directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.

D&D Movie/TV - Chris Pine To Star In D&D Movie

The long, slow process towards a modern take on D&D movies took a large step forward with the announcement of a huge star signed to the project. Considering that filming is set to start soon a cascade of announcements should be revealed in initiative order imminently. Filming begins in Q1 2021...

www.enworld.org

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am going to ask the million-dollar question of who any of those characters are?

Nah, if you are that interested, read the book. Darkwalker on Moonshae isn't great literature by any means, but it was the first Forgotten Realms novel, it was written by a D&D staff writer, and it incorporates most standard D&D tropes (especially if you refluff Kazgaroth as a shapeshifting dragon). It also stands alone and spawned sequels, which has to be a plus for someone planning a movie franchise.

And because it doesn't have a huge fanbase there won't be an internet storm of whining when the film takes liberties with the novel.

Something else just occurred to me. It has the usual beardy dwarven warrior character, but she is female. Rodriguez would be better as the dwarf than the druid.

Another thought - if Pine is playing Tristan Kendrick, or a similar character, it really could borrow from Shakespeare - Henry IV/Henry V. A wastrel playboy prince turned heroic warrior king.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nah, if you are that interested, read the book. Darkwalker on Moonshae isn't great literature by any means, but it was the first Forgotten Realms novel, it was written by a D&D staff writer, and it incorporates most standard D&D tropes (especially if you refluff Kazgaroth as a shapeshifting dragon). It also stands alone and spawned sequels, which has to be a plus for someone planning a movie franchise.

And because it doesn't have a huge fanbase there won't be an internet storm of whining when the film takes liberties with the novel.

I think the main problem is the Moonshaes is the Moonshaes.

If this was the 1980s, when a new wave of Celt-o-mania was upon us (which is what lead to the Moonshaes in the first place), people would totally be down for that.

Now? In 2021? There's no Celt-o-mania (that's a legit term btw, I didn't make it up), and there's not a particular hunger for a celtic setting, especially one chock-full of white people (two flavours - celt flavour and viking flavour, but still) and not much else. Yeah, you can of course have characters who have traveled from afar to the White People Islands (oh my god I am suppressing so many sassy comments sorry), but that's a pretty tired trope and makes non-white characters all "others" to some extent (it's not hideous or anything it's just tired).

Let's not even start on the character/place names or the Ffolk and so on.

Also, way more people have played D&D now, in 2021, than in 2000, and on top of that, awareness about D&D and RPGs in general is vastly higher. Part of what people love is the parties - diverse groups of weirdoes who bicker and squabble and have a good time whilst getting into adventures. Even the 2000 D&D movie got that bit. And I think any D&D movie has to, really. So you need a basis that has such a party in it (or can easily be expanded to have such).

Guardians of the Galaxy is actually in a lot of ways, the best "D&D movie" we've seen so far and really you want the fantasy equivalent of that. Which includes races which aren't just the Tolkien races.

I think that's why they're going original, despite the risk. None of the "classic" D&D novels (at least the well-known ones) captures what's cool about D&D. Some of them are cool stories, but they're not really D&D stories. Plus, they're almost all about a bunch of white people and some Tolkien-races (who are also white), and often disproportionately male (though not always - but the ones which aren't tend to be personally-focused stories rather than party-focused ones, for whatever reason).

I'll be shocked if the movie doesn't want to have a Tiefling and/or Dragonborn in it too. So really they'd be only looking at more modern stuff, which has little recognition.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

was the 1980s, when a new wave of Celt-o-mania was upon us (which is what lead to the Moonshaes in the first place), people would totally be down for that.

Now? In 2021? There's no Celt-o-mania (that's a legit term btw, I didn't make it up), and there's not a particular hunger for a celtic setting, especially one chock-full of white people (two flavours - celt flavour and viking flavour, but still) and not much else. Yeah, you can of course have characters who have traveled from afar to the White People Islands (oh my god I am suppressing so many sassy comments sorry), but that's a pretty tired trope and makes non-white characters all "others" to some extent (it's not hideous or anything it's just tired)./

Maybe, but if they use Irish locations it's going to have some Celtic flavour irrespective of popularity. And you can always cast non-white actors as the halflings, dwarves and elves. There is no reason why you can't change the Ffolk to be more ethnically diverse for that matter.

No particular reason you can't make Daryth a tiefling either. I'm talking "loosely based on" not "slavishly copy".

You could give the whole thing a Guardians of the Galaxy makeover quite easily. Simply Making Tristan older makes him more of a Starlordish fool than a callow youth.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe, but if they use Irish locations it's going to have some Celtic flavour irrespective of popularity. And you can always cast non-white actors as the halflings, dwarves and elves. There is no reason why you can't change the Ffolk to be more ethnically diverse for that matter.

No particular reason you can't make Daryth a tiefling either. I'm talking "loosely based on" not "slavishly copy".

Making the non-humans the non-white characters would be just like, a hilariously bad look. "Yeah we have a more diverse cast! Look how we've presented all the racial minorities as non-humans! Aren't we cool? What are you posting to Twitter? Why am I getting so many emails?".

Also, like, am I misremembering or is the core group of characters not both small and completely boring in that? Plus it's about a white man who is helped by a woman to grow into a better person so he can fulfill his white dude birthright of being in charge of everyone.

I mean, that's not at all what D&D is about. D&D is about a bunch of idiots doing stupid naughty word and nearly dying and become friends in the process, not kings learning to be better people. That's some Disney movie nonsense. And it's also like, so old-fashioned. Even if you change him to not be a white dude, it's still not very interesting, hell, even if you gender flip it as well, it's still a boring story that is not a D&D story.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a dick about this, but it's just like, that's exactly the kind of thing that doesn't fit.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Making the non-humans the non-white characters would be just like, a hilariously bad look. "Yeah we have a more diverse cast! Look how we've presented all the racial minorities as non-humans! Aren't we cool? What are you posting to Twitter? Why am I getting so many emails?".

Also, like, am I misremembering or is the core group of characters not completely boring in that?

Well they have already buggered up that way by casting a white male lead with a couple of "diverse" supporting actors (rather than say having an ensemble of similar status actors).

And yes, the characters in the book are boring, but no one loves the book so much that they will complain when the screenwriters change them. Perform a personality transplant and drop Prince Hal into Prince Tristan, Rocket Racoon into Pawldo and Gamora into Finellan.

Doug Niles was an adventure writer, it's generally the players' job to make the characters interesting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well they have already buggered up that way by casting a white male lead with a couple of "diverse" supporting actors (rather than say having an ensemble of similar status actors).

And yes, the characters in the book are boring, but no one loves the book so much that they will complain when the screenwriters change them.

To be fair we have no idea who else is in it. For all we know, Pine could be a villain, or doing a mocap creature. I mean sorry to go on about GotG but they had a famously handsome actor play a CGI raccoon.

So until we see more of the cast and their relative roles, I don't think we can assume Pine is the lead. If anything, I'd expect him to be the wise/idiotic older mentor figure, perhaps the frazzled veteran of a thousand dungeon delves (he could do that well!), and Justice Smith could well be the actual focus - or at least the audience surrogate, as the new adventurer joining an existing group. I'm kind of hoping it's more of an ensemble thing like GotG/Fast & Furious, as those are probably the best for the longer-term.

With Moonshaes I agree no-one will care if it's changed, but it's like, it's so ill-suited that I dunno if it even helps. You don't want a story about a dude who is going to be king for a D&D movie - that's the dude who hires the main characters, or who the main characters escort - he's the McGuffin, not the focus of the story.

Again I think this is why we're seeing an original story, because ironically, D&D novels tend not to be at all like what happens in D&D, or what's cool about D&D. Plenty of other writers do write stuff that is much closer to D&D - I mean, jeez, take Leigh Bardugo's "Six of Crows", if you just had more fantasy races in that it could pretty much be straight-up D&D (it's being made into a Netflix show together with her other books in the same universe, which are much less D&D-ish).

I guess what it boils down to is, to make a good D&D movie, make a good "team heist" movie. That's your genre. I can't even think of a D&D novel that's actually a heist novel, off the top of my head. Surely they must exist?

 

[Zardnaar]

I doubt it's the Moonshaes. Chris Pine probably the lead you don't tend to use the only A lister in support roles.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I doubt it's the Moonshaes. Chris Pine probably the lead you don't tend to use the only A lister in support roles.

We only know three actors so far. Assuming he's the lead is pretty silly.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No, Pine is the lead. No doubt about that.

 

[Mind of tempest]

No, Pine is the lead. No doubt about that.

or the villain.