D&D Movie/TV D&D Movie Moves Forward With Deal With Former Marvel Exec Jeremy Latcham
Traycor
Explorer
Most likely "Dungeons & Dragons" will be in the title, either as the main title or subtitle, such as "Dungeons and Dragons: The Crystal Shard" or "The Crystal Shard: Dungeons & Dragons". D&D is the brand name they are selling, not FR or any specific character name.
If the studio still wants multiple D&D franchises, they would pick a naming scheme. The MCU had Thor, Hulk, Iron-Man, and Captain America to start with. All of those are easy to say. "Drizzt" wouldn't be in a movie title because having a title you can't pronounce is a death sentence. If the story is about him, they would call it "Dark Ranger" or some such, and build that as a franchise. Think of "A Star Wars Story" that Lucasfilm was trying out. "The Dark Ranger: Dungeons and Dragons". Other teams or groups could have their own franchise with a similar naming scheme, and eventually if all goes well they would do a mega crossover event like the Avengers.
humble minion
Legend
I'd be staggered if a D&D movie introduced Drizzt, or any drow for that matter. An entire species where 99.99% are cacklingly evil psychopaths, and they're the most prominent dark-skinned civilisation in the setting, and all their pale-skinned counterparts are ethereal and elegant and majority-nice? And where the exception to the rule who is actually a nice person can only be true to his ideals by leaving his people behind and going to hang out in the Nordic-inspired north with white-skinned people (and dwarves)? Not going to fly in hollywood these days, no matter how innocently-intended. There'd definitely be Unfortunate Implications, as they say,
If they were going to mine old FR novels for a D&D movie, they should look at Azure Bonds, imho. Lots of classic D&D material and tropes there, interesting characters, and a distinctive, memorable, bananas plot.
If they were going to mine old FR novels for a D&D movie, they should look at Azure Bonds, imho. Lots of classic D&D material and tropes there, interesting characters, and a distinctive, memorable, bananas plot.
Traycor
Explorer
Expect Elves to be black, asian, caucasian, and everything else. Same for dwarves and any other "races" in FR.
humble minion
Legend
It'd certainly work for a generic D&D story, but when a huge part of the Drizzt books is that he can be recognised on sight as a drow and gets judged accordingly, that ain't gonna fly.
Ratskinner
Adventurer
I agree with your assessment of the problem. From what I see around D&D tables, D&D would be best represented by some kind of work-comedy/parody...which not surprisingly is what many of the best D&D webcomics do, IMO. Murderhoboing and point mining does not a plot make. See almost any movie based on a game franchise. Once you leave the murderhobo/fantasy-work-com aspect out of it...well, you've got a generic macguffin-chasing fantasy movie.
Traycor
Explorer
An elf that looks like a human that is ethnically black would look nothing like a drow (gray/purple/jet black, red eyes, white hair). No one is going to confuse a dark (brown) skinned elf for being a drow.
No. But heist movies are a genre. And looting a dungeon is pretty much a heist.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
It gets the film company out of controversial territory, but it puts the writers into a difficult spot - why save the people of the FR when they treat obviously nice guy Drizzt so badly?
And frankly, Drizzt is not a sufficiently well known character outside of the geek bubble to open a movie. None of the established FR characters are. There was a time, when D&D was down, when Drizzt had better name recognition than D&D (in Geekland). But now D&D is up and Salvatore is down (the latest Drizzt novel is ranked at 36,900 on Amazon UK).
But that's not a problem, people did not go to see Iron Man because they knew about and liked the character (outside the USA the character was a complete unknown, with the name referring to a completely different character in the UK). They went to see an inherently interesting character well played by a talented actor.
If you want to use drow characters, then Jarlaxle and Viconia are both better options. Jarlaxle is not "good" but he is intelligent, charming an charismatic, and prone to using the heal face revolving door. Viconia - film audiences won't see the "neutral evil" on her character sheet, and she is very much on the side of the heroes. But she is arrogant and sexist enough that the audience will understand why she is not popular!
Paul Farquhar
Legend
There are elements of the heist movie in a typical D&D story, such as gathering together a crew with specialist skills. However, in a standard heist movie the actual heist goes like clockwork until one thing causes it all to fall apart. In D&D things are usually constantly falling apart and being patched. Again, like GotG. 12% of a plan is pretty good for an average D&D party.
