D&D Movie/TV Here's The D&D Movie Trailer!

"Who needs heroes when you have thieves?" The movie arrives March 3rd, 2023. Here's the trailer! When they said it was inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy, they weren't kidding! We have dragons, owlbears, mimics, gelatinous cubes, quips, and more!



There was also a clip shown at San Diego Comic Con where the party cast speak with dead, and got to ask five questions. Also, apparently, the D&D cartoon characters from the 80s have a cameo!

 

[Jaeger]

Sure, but that still doesn’t explain why the river—which, decades after the disaster, is still shown on several recent maps (and in the still-active MMO) as flowing to the south of Castle Never—suddenly has started flowing to the castle’s north instead.

The likely reason is that the movie people can care less about which direction the river is flowing in their version.

They correctly guess that the overwhelming majority of people that will watch this film will not care either.

Besides watching Chris Perkins DM, I also enjoy hearing Chris Perkins speak about D&D as I can tell he cares deeply about the lore and history of D&D.

He also said that they are not bound in any way by past D&D lore when making 5e material.

 

[Demetrios1453]

In that video posted earlier upthread Perkins said Waterdeep was the biggest city on Faerun I seem to recall reading in the Empires of the Shining Sea boxed set or Calimport book around 1998 that Calimport was the biggest city, anyone else recall this?

It's gone back and forth over editions. Some say yes, some say that corrupt Calimshan officials have falsified the census results in order to inappropriately get more money.

 

[Reynard]

It's gone back and forth over editions. Some say yes, some say that corrupt Calimshan officials have falsified the census results in order to inappropriately get more money.

Obviously, one is talking about population and the other is talking about square miles, so they are both right!

 

[R_J_K75]

It's gone back and forth over editions. Some say yes, some say that corrupt Calimshan officials have falsified the census results in order to inappropriately get more money.

That makes sense. I realized after I wrote that those books came out 24 years ago so figured it probably was edition specific. I'd be very hard pressed to find the actual reference anyhow.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

He also said that they are not bound in any way by past D&D lore when making 5e material.

I mean, to be fair to Perkins, I think that's just a matter of being honest. You're never bound by previous lore, any more than you want to be. There isn't a D&D setting that's ever worked that way - sometimes even within editions they aren't. I think the only time you really see people reliably "bound by lore" is when you have a single author working on a product they own themselves, but even then look at Tolkien coming up with literally a dozen different explanations of "where orcs come from", and literally never settling on one.

 

[bedir than]

Obviously, one is talking about population and the other is talking about square miles, so they are both right!

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[beta-ray]

I was not feeling it when they previewed the characters yesterday… but glad to see they look better in-movie.

I'm definitely not an encyclopedia of D&D, so I'm not that concerned about a lot of the little details. The movie looks like it could be fun, that is my concern with a movie.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Feeling better about it, still think he would be great as a streaming show but will be seeing it.

 

[cavalier973]

I wonder if Omin Drann will be in the movie. He is, canonically, one of the Masked Lords of Waterdeep.

If Jerry Holkins is in the movie as Omin Drann…

 

[Demetrios1453]

By the way, putting in that shot of the black dragon breathing acid at the start was a brilliant stroke. First of all - it's a dragon! That's always going to get attention form basically everyone. Secondly, for people not familiar with D&D, seeing a dragon breathing something other than flame is going to be intriguing - "What was that? Oh, the ground is sizzling, is that acid? A dragon that breathes acid? That's different and interesting!" Thirdly, for D&D fans, seeing that the production team researched enough to have a non-fire-breathing dragon featured, and got that past the execs who would likely just go "People just think dragons breathe fire, so make it breathe fire" is hugely re-assuring that they're going to adhere to the spirit of the game as much as possible.

Of course, the put in a lot of other fan-pleasing bits as well (and I will cheerfully admit I let out quite a few delighted "oooohs" as the trailer progressed). Just going by comments I've read on YouTube, which is usually a cesspool of seething hatred by fans of pre-existing IPs when they get adapted, they've seemed to have nailed it, with a lot of people going "I thought this was going to suck, but it actually looks, at worst, decent, if not outright good", with outright negative comments being shockingly few and far between.

Also, it's at nearly 2.5 million views in just a few hours. That's a very impressive and encouraging.