Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2011)

[Knightfall]

On the set of Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness

The link below takes you to one of three photos on the IMDb profile page for Micheal Rogers who is playing a "knight" in the movie.

Photos of Michael Rogers

He's on your left.

 

[Knightfall]

Beau Brasso on the set of D&D 3. No name for his character, yet.

Photos of Beau Brasso

 

[hopeless]

The link below takes you to one of three photos on the IMDb profile page for Micheal Rogers who is playing a "knight" in the movie.

Photos of Michael Rogers

He's on your left.

The middle one wearing the holy symbol of Pelor is meant to be a cleric right?

 

[Thunderfoot]

The first one was an absolute utter PoS! If a Wayan's is ever cast in another D&D film, please for the love of the gods, let him get hit by the kraft services truck on day one of filming so they have to re-cast his part...

The second one was on SciFi and though it was better than the first, I think the funny WotC D&D commercials during the film was as good as the movie, especially since they were rules for gamers, such as #3 never split the party, and they invariably broke the rule in the very next scene. My wife and I were on the ground laughing most of the time.

If the third one is like that, good, seeing that a DnD: WotDG writer is on board makes me less apprehensive. But, honestly, the second one was only good because the first one blew chunks so bad....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm told by my friends that my post-movie rant RE: the first D&D movie- which I saw in theater- was pretty choice, not just in the expertise of my dissection, but also the tone & delivery.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I'm told by my friends that my post-movie rant RE: the first D&D movie- which I saw in theater- was pretty choice, not just in the expertise of my dissection, but also the tone & delivery.

I hear you. We took our whole gaming group (which was quite large at the time) to go so it. We panned it all the way home, and all night long around my kitchen table. We had some choice words about the way we wanted to see it end, but it probably wouldn't be Grandma friendly and may have the mods all over my butt about wishing ill of people with sharp and extremely hot objects....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was 100% clean in my assessment...but acid-tongued nonetheless, pointing out the bad CGI (including obvious cuts & pastes for crowd scenes), Wayan's performance as a second-rate Chris Tucker impression, Jeremy Irons' "inarticulate method screaming", black vulcan elves, Bruce Payne's character being "too sexy, to sexy for his helmet" and visible mold seams on plastic props. One wonders where that $20M was spent.

 

[frankthedm]

One wonders where that $20M was spent.

$30M - $45M by some estimates.

Hollywood is really good at making money disappear. In this case, what i have heard was the CG company sucked the budget like a flock of dire stirges.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good link, Ftdm!

It covers a lot of the same ground- albeit with some variation in the numbers (which do not alter the conclusions)- that I had to in school. Coming to America is the classic example, but Raid on Entebbe was just as classically bad- Israel provided all kinds of assistance & materiel in exchange for a share of the net profits. My recollection is they got enough money to buy a military spec Jeep.

But with Hollywood accounting, the usual end result is screwing the investors. The $$$ they claim is being spent on the filming actually does get spent that way and shows up on the screen.

That 1st movie was given a decent budget, but you wouldn't know it from watching it.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I remember wondering if the budget was spent on actors salaries that someone was asleep the day they taught casting 101 at film school.

The sad part is how much of the CGI ended up on the cutting room floor and how the plot was completely overhauled in editing. The original supposedly had more shots of beholders and some battle scenes with them as well (I always thought the scene where they snuck past the beholder guard as laughable.)

Supposedly most of the Wayans footage was actually shot on soundstage after the filming wrapped. (not sure how much of that is true, but it would make a lot of sense.) And the reason for the changes in the script and storyline were to give him more comic presence on screen (talk about your poor production decisions.)

But enough about the bad first movie...

If the third follows the second, and so far there is no reason not think it will, there should be lots of "in" references for gamers that have been around from the beginning, some okay effects and a villain with blue lips.