D&D Movie/TV Casting Begins Soon For D&D Movie?

According to Screenrant, Paramount's (Summer 2021) Dungeons & Dragons movie is about to begin casting.

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There's a few tidbits to be gleaned from the article:

• Paramount is looking at A-listers for the male lead
• The new draft of the script is by Michael Gillio
• The director is no longer involved, and the studio is looking for a new one

There has been plenty of news, speculation, rumour, and more about this movie over the last few years; in fact, I've been covering the various rumours for at least 5 years!

• New D&D Movie: July 23rd 2021
• What's The Latest On The D&D Movie?
• Joe Manganelio is Writing the D&D Movie? And Is it DRAGONLANCE?
• The D&D Movie Finds Its Director
• The D&D Movie That Never Was
• D&D Movie Takes Cues From GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
• New D&D Movie To Go Ahead - Produced By Lego Movie's Roy Lee

 

[Hussar]

There are dozens of good movies made every year, and no D&D movies. Whilst I would prefer a good D&D movie, I will settle for a mediocre one over an Oscar winning movie about how a child who was disabled in a car crash on the way to a D&D game overcomes adversity to become a champion marathon runner.

And if there aren't enough D&D fans for upsetting them to be an issue, then there aren't enough D&D fans to make it worth while sticking a D&D label on a movie in the first place.

Heh. There's a difference between D&D fan and "recognizes the brand". Same way that there are TONS of Marvel fans who have never even opened a comic book. Or, tons of Batman fans that have never read a comic book. While there are lots of comic book fans, they are vastly, vastly outnumbered by fans of the movies. When my Japanese students are wearing Batman T-shirts, and instantly know who Batman is, I'm pretty sure they are not comic book fans.

Same deal with D&D.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It has come up before in this topic, and in most other topics here about a D&D movie, but there is no real identity to what D&D is setting-wise. A lot of other game systems out there have only one world that is used and the game name is the setting name. Plus many game systems are set in alternate versions of our world. Sure, with 5th Ed, they are really trying to tie the game to the Forgotten Realms, but it is not the only world the game system has used in it's history. Then you toss in fans who may have played some games where the DM used a homebrew world and they also watch some of the streaming shows that do not use any of the official WotC-owned settings. I think they will need to call it a Forgotten Realms movie or a Greyhawk movie or a Tal'Dorei movie, etc, and not a D&D movie.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would dispute that 5e is trying to tie the game to the Forgotten Realms. For the most part, 5e stuff focuses on "setting agnostic" and "homebrew", with FR as a convenient default. Pretty much as 1st edition defaulted to Greyhawk, even though most of the published stuff had nothing Grewhawk-specific. Campaign setting specificity was a 2nd edition thing.

But certainly, the setting isn't important for a movie, although I would go for a Generic Fantasy setting over something more wild and whacky (Eberron, Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft) at least for a first movie.