D&D Movie/TV D&D Movie - Wild Speculation and Poll

[OB1]

The only way to do that and have it not be too stupid to even bother going to see is to be serious about it and actually explore ideas of identity, free will, etc, like GoTF did, or fully make it a silly cartoon movie.

You know, when the directors first mentioned that they had a 'subversive' take for the film, I thought they might do something where the main character hears a voice in his head, with knowledge they shouldn't have and driving them to do things they don't want (which is the voice of the player of the character). IE an exploration of Metagaming. Could really work if that main character was a Cleric or Paladin, as they could mistake it for the voice of their god. The story could then revolve around the Player and the PC learning to live with and help each other, a bit like Venom or Upgrade.

 

[payn]

I do think an introduction will be key, im not so sure a narration is necessary. Do folks really need to know what the forgettable realms are? I still dont know what the hell is going on in Guardians of the Galaxy setting. I know folks are going to say, "but the MCU set it up!" Well, what film exactly set up GotG? We get a sad story of Quill losing his mom, abducted by aliens, and then bam, we are in space. Nothing connects it but the magic stones and the characters showing up together several films later. Could stand all on its own without long narrations or explanations of any of the world in detail. Nothing else matters to anybody except the diehards of the comics.

 

[OB1]

I do think an introduction will be key, im not so sure a narration is necessary. Do folks really need to know what the forgettable realms are? I still dont know what the hell is going on in Guardians of the Galaxy setting. I know folks are going to say, "but the MCU set it up!" Well, what film exactly set up GotG? We get a sad story of Quill losing his mom, abducted by aliens, and then bam, we are in space. Nothing connects it but the magic stones and the characters showing up together several films later. Could stand all on its own without long narrations or explanations of any of the world in detail. Nothing else matters to anybody except the diehards of the comics.

We certainly don't need to know all the details of what the Forgotten Realms are, but we do need an entry point to the setting. In the case of GotG, that was thru Quill who was a) 80's earth human and b) was shown to have a backstory that instantly got the audience invested in his character. Those two pieces worked in concert to give the audience something to latch onto, and if the D&D movie skips some sort of narration device, it will need to very quickly have the audience care about the main character and not worry so much about the details of the strange, fantastic world they are in.

 

[cavalier973]

They've changed the depictions of Drow recently. Drizzt is more of a pale grey-ish lilac now.

A purplish-green, you say? He's now octarine in color?

 

[cavalier973]

The composer for the score should be the guy who did the music for Icewond Dale.

Maybe include motifs from the cartoon's theme song. Or, possibly, the pinball machine music:
In any case, it would be disappointing if this wasnt worked into the movie at some point:

 

[Parmandur]

The composer for the score should be the guy who did the music for Icewond Dale.

Yeah, uh, he's been cancelled, actually...so not likely.

Guardians of the Galaxy is already a perfect D&D movie, the closer they come to that mark, the better.

 

[Undrave]

But in the case of a DnD movie, they also need to establish the setting. It's not enough to have a helicopter shot of the city - they need to explain what the Realms are to people, since that's not even something all DnD players really know. That's gonna mean opening narration is a must. And it's pretty easy to set the tone while doing that, and a waste of time to do a narration and a framing device. So I'd be surprised if they go with anything other than an opening narration.

Now this is a good point. You DON'T want to overload people with narration and exposition at the beginning... unless the creation myth of the world has some sort of impact on the plot, we don't need that. And we don't need some sort of socio-political History of the Sword Coast or something.

The Star Wars crawl for episode IV is probably one of the best inspiration for that kind of stuff.

A purplish-green, you say? He's now octarine in color?

purplish-GREY.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The composer for the score should be the guy who did the music for Icewond Dale.

The video game? Because oooooooh boooooy that is definitely not going to happen. He's been involved in a couple of sex abuse scandals in 2019, but AAA game companies had stopped working with him long before that (certainly 2014 was the last time he was booked by an AAA company but nothing actually came of it, in 2015 he produced a music pack for Dota 2 but that's a different thing), despite him being continuously employed on AAA games from the late 1990s to the early 2010s. The reasons for this are unclear, but it seems to be more that he was "difficult to work with" than anything else. He's also notably failed to complete the Kickstarter album project he launched despite having been massively successful (something like 12x the asked amount) all the way back in 2013. The company he ran with his brother to directly sell music to people has also had a lot of... issues... actually supplying customers who have paid.

So yeah... it won't be him. The abuse stuff was just the nail in the coffin.

 

[aco175]

I saw this listing Dave Arneson as a writer, but thinking the (game) part is saying he wrote the game the movie is based off of. Not sure what that means for Gary Gygax, or Blackmoor, or any talking with Dave about the movie.

Directors:​

John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Writers:​

Dave Arneson (game), John Francis Daley (screenplay) | 2 more credits »

Stars:​

Regé-Jean Page, Chris Pine, Sophia Lillis | See full cast & crew »

 

[Morrus]

I saw this listing Dave Arneson as a writer, but thinking the (game) part is saying he wrote the game the movie is based off of.

Well he passed away over a decade ago, so he's certainly not writing the movie!