Dragonlance Joe Manganelio is Writing the D&D Movie? And Is it DRAGONLANCE?

Actor Joe Manganelio (from True Blood, Magic Mike, and more) appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, and reported that he is co-writing a movie script. While he doesn't namecheck D&D, his description sounds a lot like it, and he did recently meet up with WotC. "Last year with a playwright I went to Carnegie Mellon with, I actually made a draft of a film, and now we're talking to all the right parties. I had a two-day creative summit with the Wizards of the Coast...we had like a two-day summit about where the movie could go or TV series, products, synergy, the whole deal… Obviously, there's a spectacle. There's dragons breathing fire and lightning. But what makes a great superhero or fantasy movie is the human aspect. It's got to be about something. We root for those characters in Game of Thrones. Fellowship of the Ring was about friendship, this undying love for your friends. That's something everyone can identify with. When a movie is about something human and real emotionally people are going to want to see. Then you get some dragons breathing fire, and hey, I'm in." And to add fuel to the fire, he even tweets a photo of a DRAGONLANCE script! (thanks to darjr for the scoop)

The D&D movie is being directed by Rob Letterman (Goosebumps, Monsters vs. Aliens, Shark Tale), produced by Rob Lee (The Lego Movie, How To Train Your Dragon) and was/maybe still is being penned by David Leslie Johnson (Wrath of the Titans). Previous reports indicated that "This new Dungeons & Dragons will be a Guardians of the Galaxy-tone movie in a Tolkien-like universe. Because when you think of all the Hobbit movies and The Lord of the Rings, they have an earnestness to them, and to see something fun, a Raiders romp inside that world, I feel is something the audience has not seen before." and that "producers are eyeing a Vin Diesel-type for the film’s lead characters".

Of course, we also know that Vin Diesel plays D&D, as does Joe Manganiello.

So is he co-writing the D&D movie or is that something else? To add to the rumour pile, he tweeted an image of a DRAGONLANCE script (shown below). Of course, he could be playing with us. But maybe there is something in it? His name isn't that script, nor is David Leslie Johnson's. Let the speculation begin!

Manganelio at WotC in February

Manganelio tweeted this image



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[Wednesday Boy]

An article I read said it's Dragonlance and Manganiello twittered this.

 

[AriochQ]

I'd go for Eberron if choosing by setting, or Dragonlance if they want a beloved story that isn't despised by a vocal subset of the DnD fandom. (No Drizzt, please) it is epic, the characters are compelling, people who read the books tend to latch on to elements of the story and characters and write fanfic and whatnot, and more obscure fantasy has made it to the big screen without flopping.

But an original story with the right cast, and no dumb controversy (hire diverse, don't directly rip anyone off, etc), could do fine. Doesn't have to break records, if just has to be good and make money.

And I hope they don't just cheese the hell out of it and hope for the best.

But yeah, if they wanna tell an FR story, whatever. It's a boring setting overall, but it has interesting bits. Just no Drizzt.

I never understood what people see in Eberron. Granted, I never played or ran in that setting, my only interaction has been through DDO, but it seems very niche as a setting. I don't think an Eberron movie would do well at all, it strays too far from traditional fantasy for broad appeal.

Dragonlance would work, given the setting was sort of backward engineered as a story first it would probably make a good movie (plus you get Kender for comic relief!).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe you could tell me what is going on. And please, speak as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. It wasn't brains that brought me here; I assure you that.

I don't care enough to do a bullet point breakdown, but I'll try to sum up.

If you respond with nitpickey bs, I can always just put you on my ignore list and move on. I'm optimistic that won't happen, though. Kinda. These forums have been really full of that lately, even from posters I don't normally see it from.

Anyway, in your first response, you bolded two sections of txt, and the responded as if those bolder sections were the whole post.

Particularly irritating was the "pitch" part of your posts, because I at no point said anything negative about pitch language, nor indicated any lack of knowledge of how a pitch works. I simply said that the quote in full made me cringe. You then proceeded to assume I needed a lesson on how Hollywood works, at which point I lost any interest in communicating with you meaningfully, because I despise elitism and "well, actually" type behavior, vociferously.

To clarify the point of my original post, since this seems to be something you don't want to just let go and move on; The wording and tone of the pitch, specifically, suggest a boring "elves, dwarves, humans, maybe Halflings, are the good Races, anything else is bad, let's just shoot in New Zealand and hope our Legolas is pretty enough" with the "twist" of not taking it seriously. GoTG isn't compatible with Tolkien, unless by tolkien they literally just meant made up fantasy world. If they did, great, but the quote isn't encouraging in that regard.

Nor is the quote definitive of what the movie will look like. Nor did my first statements imply that it was.

And yet, you took a broad statement of concern "X is a bit cringey" and decided to make a bunch of nonsensical assumptions.

 

[Oofta]

not psychic. Pessimistic Realistic.

I don't expect [insert best fantasy movie you've ever seen here*], but I don't expect the crap we got from SweatPea either. Then again, I rather enjoyed Letterman's other movies so there's no accounting for taste.

I just get tired of the hate for something that's still in production. But feel free to be psychotic psychic all you want.

*For me it would be LOTR.

 

[God]

What the holy what?!?: Teh Twitters

TLDR: It's an adaptation of Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I never understood what people see in Eberron. Granted, I never played or ran in that setting, my only interaction has been through DDO, but it seems very niche as a setting. I don't think an Eberron movie would do well at all, it strays too far from traditional fantasy for broad appeal.

Dragonlance would work, given the setting was sort of backward engineered as a story first it would probably make a good movie (plus you get Kender for comic relief!).

Traditional fantasy isn't a source of broad appeal. LOTR works because of the journey and the characters, not because it's pseudo medieval and has elves and dwarves. Same deal with GoT.

Eberron is just a vastly more engaging setting, with interesting factions, tensions, and room to be familiar yet new for the LOTR crowd.

That said, consider Joe's tweets, Dragonlance seems most likely, if he gets his way.

 

[AriochQ]

Traditional fantasy isn't a source of broad appeal. LOTR works because of the journey and the characters, not because it's pseudo medieval and has elves and dwarves. Same deal with GoT.

Eberron is just a vastly more engaging setting, with interesting factions, tensions, and room to be familiar yet new for the LOTR crowd.

That said, consider Joe's tweets, Dragonlance seems most likely, if he gets his way.

But most of the D&D campaign setting have that level of detail. My preferred setting is Greyhawk and just off the top of my head I can come up with several stories, both large and small, that would make excellent movies. If you want big, you can go with the Greyhawk Wars. Going small, the disappearance of the King of Furyondy's son. There are tons of stories that have already been told with fully developed plots, characters, and intrigue.

On to the bigger question, if they do Dragons of Autumn Twilight, why wouldn't they get the original authors or an established screenplay writer?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Reynard]

Eberron is just a vastly more engaging setting, with interesting factions, tensions, and room to be familiar yet new for the LOTR crowd.

More importantly, it is built to tell adventure stories as well as have tons of cool visuals. Why there isn't a Clone Wars/Rebels quality level Eberron 'toon on, I can't fathom.

 

[pukunui]

Also, the dude has a hardcore Miniatures collection.

I wonder if Sofia Vergara plays D&D with Joe.