D&D Movie/TV New D&D Movie: July 23rd 2021

It's official - the new Dungeons & Dragons movie is coming, and it's coming in four years - July 23rd, 2021, as announced by Paramount.

We already know that the movie will be produced by the Lego Movie's Roy Lee, that it will be directed by Rob Letterman (Goosebumps, Monsters vs. Aliens, Shark Tale). Originally scripted by David Leslie Johnson (Wrath of the Titans), it's now being written by Joe Manganelio, might be Dragonlance and then again might feature the Yawning Portal, and will adopt a Guardians of the Galaxy tone. Oh, and that we should take everything I just said with a pinch of salt as the movie appears have jumped from WB to Paramount at some point in the process!

 

[Azzy]

There is still time to get Michael Bay to direct, so we can permanently solve "the ranger issue", because if MB directed it, the ranger would be an Airborne Ranger*, and 6e's ranger will clearly be based off the movie ranger.

* I have no idea what that will mean mechanically.

Neither to I, but I do know that I wanna be an airborne ranger!

 

[Dire Bare]

Not sure why they just don't do the Icewind Dale Trilogy. I'd buy the whole set and the extended edition cash grabs in 4K afterward.

It might have something to do with an entire race seen as evil, in part due to their dark skin complexion. With the exception of our hero, of course. Not that you couldn't pull off a movie based on Salvatore's Dark Elf series, but I can understand Hollywood's hesitance to do so. It would be easy to have things go very, very wrong.

 

[Wulffolk]

My approach to giving a D&D movie any chance of success is to keep an open mind and have exceedingly low expectations. Only when the bar is set at the lowest point can a D&D movie be expected to surpass expectations. The previous movies did a brilliant job of setting up this one for success! How could our expectations be any lower.

With all due respect to Joe Manganello and Vinn Diesel, and any other Hollywood type that has any love for this game, hearing that Joe is writing the movie scares me more than a little. I am highly skeptical of actors trying to be writers. I am sure there are examples of that working out, like Good Will Hunting, but I am not holding my breath.

In the end, I have set the bar at the level of "Not Embarrassing". If they can make a film that I am not embarrassed to discuss with non-gamers then they will have succeeded in my eyes.

The best case scenario would be a LotR style epic trilogy based on the original DragonLance character's. They had enough character's that everybody could find one that appealed to them. They covered many of the fantasy tropes with good grace, and Draconians could make for some memorable movie enemies if done right. That would distinguish the D&D movie some from the standard Elves&Orcs fantasy setting. Whatever they do, the movie must be related to dragons in some way, but hopefully just setting the stage for a 3rd movie showdown with a dragon.

 

[Mercurius]

Maybe it is time to start casting (again) the Dragonlance movies:

Tanis: Viggo Mortensen
Caramon: Andy Serkis
Raistlin: Andy Serkis
Laurana: Orlando Bloom
Sturm: Eddard Stark
Riverwind: The Grumpy Rohah dude, aka Karl Urban
Goldmoon: Miranda Otto
Tasslehoff: Elijah Wood
Flint: John Rhys-Davies
Kitiara: Someone really sexy
Fizban: Ian McKellan
All Dragons: Andy Serkis
All Draconians: Andy Serkis
Gully Dwarves: Merry and Pippin
Lord Soth: Christopher Lee's disembodied voice

 

[Ath-kethin]

Maybe it is time to start casting (again) the Dragonlance movies:

Tanis: Viggo Mortensen
Caramon: Andy Serkis
Raistlin: Andy Serkis
Laurana: Orlando Bloom
Sturm: Eddard Stark
Riverwind: The Grumpy Rohah dude, aka Karl Urban
Goldmoon: Miranda Otto
Tasslehoff: Elijah Wood
Flint: John Rhys-Davies
Kitiara: Someone really sexy
Fizban: Ian McKellan
All Dragons: Andy Serkis
All Draconians: Andy Serkis
Gully Dwarves: Merry and Pippin
Lord Soth: Christopher Lee's disembodied voice

I actually think Andy Serkis would make a fine Goldmoon as well.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I wouldn't be averse to seeing at least some cameos from gamer actors like those seen in Critical Role, or Will Wheaton/Felicia Day perhaps. But it shouldn't be a distraction from just getting the best possible casting, writers, directors, etc. If we have (yet another) unpopular, bad D&D movie it will be a disaster really.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Nope. No silly dance offs, no 12% plans, no fish out of water characters. Irony and wit, yes, but not silliness.

Sounds boring. No thanks.

Pretty much any funny movie, whether it’s a comedy or just a drama/action/whatever with humor, has some level of silliness.

 

[Oofta]

I do have to say that I think a DragonLance movie would be a better idea than an FR movie for several reason. The draconians distinguish it from Tolkien, and kender are more unique than halflings.

But a big issue with FR/Drizz't would be how to do the drow and not make it look like someone doing blackface. Yes, drow are based on norse mythology, but I think having any actor with their face painted black is going to be controversial at best.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I really can't think of any movie that better captures my tonal experience of D&D or RPGs in general.

I've both read and heard people saying that GotG was a lot like a D&D adventure and party, but IN SPACE.

 

[DM Howard]

The handling of the Dragonlance animated movie makes me very hesitant to want a motion picture in Krynn ever again. I think FR would be the best choice because if you read passed the "front cover" of the setting, it is much more than a more high fantasy Greyhawk/Middle Earth. But if we are throwing wishes at the wall, I'd love to see a proper Mystara movie!

Drow are not really based on Norse mythology. If you are talking about the mention of Dark Elves in the Eddas, that is quite the leap besides the names being the same.

 

[Wulffolk]

But a big issue with FR/Drizz't would be how to do the drow and not make it look like someone doing blackface. Yes, drow are based on norse mythology, but I think having any actor with their face painted black is going to be controversial at best.

If they were to pursue a live-action verson of Drizz't I think they would need to lighten the skin-tone to a dark shade of gray so that the audience could better read his facial expressions. However, I don't think that Drizz't is a good choice for leading character of D&D's media flagship. The less human the main character is the less relateable he will be to the general audience. The cast of DragonLance has many more relateable characters for a wider audience.

 

[Demetrios1453]

If they do do a Dragonlance series (and I would be perfectly fine with that, as it would translate to the big screen pretty well), they would need to do something about Goldmoon and Riverwind after the first novel, since they fade to virtual non-entities with no real conflict or room for growth after their marriage, unlike just about every other character.

 

[Wulffolk]

If they do do a Dragonlance series (and I would be perfectly fine with that, as it would translate to the big screen pretty well), they would need to do something about Goldmoon and Riverwind after the first novel, since they fade to virtual non-entities with no real conflict or room for growth after their marriage, unlike just about every other character.

Play up the tension between Goldmoon and Elistan?
Let them fade into the background and focus on more interesting and active character's?
They were two of my least favorite characters anyways.

I want to see Danny Devito as Fewmaster Toede.

How much screen time should we give to Ebon Shatterstone?

Maybe the love story between Gilthanas and Silvara could become a spin-off?

The death of Sturm Brightblade at the hands of Kitiara, and Laurana finding his body would make for an awesome scene.

 

[Juomari Veren]

Good choice moving away from that Johnson person, those Titans movies were dreck. I'm glad they went with Manganelio, he's a good D&D player, good actor, and he's reliable for the brand thus far as Arkhan the Cruel. Choice of director is still leaving a bad taste in my mouth given his past work but his most recent film (Captain Underpants) is actually very good and oddly faithful to its source material, so maybe there's an upward trend to be had in his career.

All I can hope for now is that the cast and crew are forced to play a few sessions of D&D to get a feel for the game. If nothing it'd be good promotional material to watch/listen to all these people playing for what may be their first time. The setting isn't a big deal for me but I'd suspect that they're going to aim to make the game reflect the movie than make the movie reflect the game, so I'll expect the movie to inform the adventure and not the other way around. But with all this talk of Planescape in certain published and promotional materials, I suspect where the story takes place won't be such a big problem.

 

[Morrus]

$33 million is not a very good return on your money when you have to spend $45 million to earn it.

yeah but: Budget:$45,000,000 (estimated)

It wasn't a comment on its profitability, just the amusing coincidental similarity of the completely unrelated figures.

 

[Emirikol_Prime]

We don't even know of Joe is still attached to this anymore.

 

[LordEntrails]

I think it will be a new story set in the Realms. Using any of the other settings or characters means they have to share profits and get licensing agreements with more players. I don't think they will make it harder on themselves and try and do that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What movie are you talking about? The one that came in second for opening weekend sales? The one where the movie sales went up over the weekend? The one with a metascore of 86 on IMDB and a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes? All I can say is that I think TLJ was one of the best star wars movie to date, so expect opinions to vary. But I really don't want to get into that, you're entitled to your opinion.

As far as a D&D movie, there's a fair amount of silliness in D&D that we just kind of accept (especially things from 4E like Genasi and Shardminds, although Tabaxi are right up there). Some movies embrace that silliness ala Guardians of the Galaxy (a talking raccoon? Really?) while others try to be overly serious about it (the WOW movie, like I mentioned before).

I agree with most of this, but I’m not sure i see the sillyness in Tabaxi or Genasi. Also, Genasi aren’t a 4e thing.

Hell, even shardmind aren’t silly by any normal definition of silly that I’m aware of. Odd? Sure, but not silly by any means.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Play up the tension between Goldmoon and Elistan?
Let them fade into the background and focus on more interesting and active character's?
They were two of my least favorite characters anyways.

I want to see Danny Devito as Fewmaster Toede.

How much screen time should we give to Ebon Shatterstone?

Maybe the love story between Gilthanas and Silvara could become a spin-off?

The death of Sturm Brightblade at the hands of Kitiara, and Laurana finding his body would make for an awesome scene.

The thought of the visual potential there makes me want Ryan Johnson in he director’s seat.

 

[Wulffolk]

One of my favorite images from DragonLance was the portrait of The Death of SturmView attachment 92178