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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7773621" data-attributes="member: 32740"><p>Yep. Realized that immediately when I followed the link. I recognized it as very old news and noted that I don't recall reading any follow-up information. Any predictions based on press releases announcing a movie "in development", "in production", or depending on what went into it even after it's "in the can" <em>it might never see the light of day</em>. There's a thing in Hollywood called "turnaround". It means that at any moment a studio can call a halt to everything that's been done on a movie up to that point and simply offer the property for sale just to recoup some costs, and then write off as much as possible as a loss for tax purposes. It's even more likely with a property like D&D which has, shall we say, a dubious history with efforts to translate it to cinema. It happens to big time productions with A-list names as well as "it was doomed from the start" productions from, say, Sweetpea Entertainment. Don't count Hollywood chickens until they are well and truly hatched out of the egg, walking around on their own and chirping. Even movies fully completed and due to be released can be yanked and permanently shelved because they accidentally touch too close in some way on real world events, or the star has one incident of rape, or a director has an entire history of racism, bigotry, or criminality that finally comes to light.</p><p></p><p>The 13th Warrior immediately springs to mind. Saw that with friends and VERY quickly were saying to each other while the film was still rolling, "This is just a fighters-only adventure."</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>The thing about adapting a D&D adventure module for a movie is that, because it IS a movie it lacks one element that constitutes a black-hole scale vacuum, but which it would never exist <em>without</em> as an RPG: Characters.</p><p></p><p>You can say you want to adapt an adventure like... Against the Cult of the Reptile God. The module is originally set in Greyhawk - but it doesn't need to be and might be better if it weren't for a variety of reasons (securing more rights, sales of an all-new setting, for starters...) But WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS? All you have to start with is a place and a plot. The characters can still be ANYTHING. A trio of neophyte wizards; a standard cleric/fighter/thief/wizard combo; a noble and his retinue; a witch doctor, purple gorilla, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Johnny Quest. It can be written as a farce or a noir thriller. It can be place-shifted to a small town in Indiana. It can be genre-shifted to be sci-fi and an homage to the alien franchise. Starting with a known module means NOTHING, and means less than nothing when you can insert any kind of characters into it - as creative PLAYERS in an rpg undoubtedly would.</p><p></p><p>You can make a dozen different movies based on the top 12 best modules and campaign settings of all time and watch all them turn out as utter crap because there isn't a compelling roster of CHARACTERS to inhabit those worlds and drive the plot, and draw the audience in with a desire to know more about them and follow THEIR adventures. You can take any one module and use it over and over to create 12 movies and every one will be entirely unique if there are different "player" characters in it, with varying attitudes and motivations.</p><p></p><p>You don't play D&D to have a nameless, faceless, unmotivated blob experience Ravenloft. You play D&D because you want Fineous Fingers, the cynical and overconfident thief YOU created, to make it through Ravenloft without entirely losing his mind. And maybe he'll be aided in this endeavor by whatever random assortment of other PC's get created, or maybe he'll be more frustrated by them resulting in a completely different game play experience - even though the module would not change.</p><p></p><p>A 'D&D' movie based on any module, any setting, is irrelevant and IMO doomed to failure without first adding CHARACTERS. And then it's those characters that will make or break the movie, NOT the adventure module or setting it's based around. That is the undeniable chasm that separates movies (and written fiction) from RPG's.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 7773621, member: 32740"] Yep. Realized that immediately when I followed the link. I recognized it as very old news and noted that I don't recall reading any follow-up information. Any predictions based on press releases announcing a movie "in development", "in production", or depending on what went into it even after it's "in the can" [I]it might never see the light of day[/I]. There's a thing in Hollywood called "turnaround". It means that at any moment a studio can call a halt to everything that's been done on a movie up to that point and simply offer the property for sale just to recoup some costs, and then write off as much as possible as a loss for tax purposes. It's even more likely with a property like D&D which has, shall we say, a dubious history with efforts to translate it to cinema. It happens to big time productions with A-list names as well as "it was doomed from the start" productions from, say, Sweetpea Entertainment. Don't count Hollywood chickens until they are well and truly hatched out of the egg, walking around on their own and chirping. Even movies fully completed and due to be released can be yanked and permanently shelved because they accidentally touch too close in some way on real world events, or the star has one incident of rape, or a director has an entire history of racism, bigotry, or criminality that finally comes to light. The 13th Warrior immediately springs to mind. Saw that with friends and VERY quickly were saying to each other while the film was still rolling, "This is just a fighters-only adventure." --- The thing about adapting a D&D adventure module for a movie is that, because it IS a movie it lacks one element that constitutes a black-hole scale vacuum, but which it would never exist [I]without[/I] as an RPG: Characters. You can say you want to adapt an adventure like... Against the Cult of the Reptile God. The module is originally set in Greyhawk - but it doesn't need to be and might be better if it weren't for a variety of reasons (securing more rights, sales of an all-new setting, for starters...) But WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS? All you have to start with is a place and a plot. The characters can still be ANYTHING. A trio of neophyte wizards; a standard cleric/fighter/thief/wizard combo; a noble and his retinue; a witch doctor, purple gorilla, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Johnny Quest. It can be written as a farce or a noir thriller. It can be place-shifted to a small town in Indiana. It can be genre-shifted to be sci-fi and an homage to the alien franchise. Starting with a known module means NOTHING, and means less than nothing when you can insert any kind of characters into it - as creative PLAYERS in an rpg undoubtedly would. You can make a dozen different movies based on the top 12 best modules and campaign settings of all time and watch all them turn out as utter crap because there isn't a compelling roster of CHARACTERS to inhabit those worlds and drive the plot, and draw the audience in with a desire to know more about them and follow THEIR adventures. You can take any one module and use it over and over to create 12 movies and every one will be entirely unique if there are different "player" characters in it, with varying attitudes and motivations. You don't play D&D to have a nameless, faceless, unmotivated blob experience Ravenloft. You play D&D because you want Fineous Fingers, the cynical and overconfident thief YOU created, to make it through Ravenloft without entirely losing his mind. And maybe he'll be aided in this endeavor by whatever random assortment of other PC's get created, or maybe he'll be more frustrated by them resulting in a completely different game play experience - even though the module would not change. A 'D&D' movie based on any module, any setting, is irrelevant and IMO doomed to failure without first adding CHARACTERS. And then it's those characters that will make or break the movie, NOT the adventure module or setting it's based around. That is the undeniable chasm that separates movies (and written fiction) from RPG's. [/QUOTE]
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