Pitch me your ulitmate D&D movie

[stevelabny]

I'm not a writer. I don't have a pitch of my own. However, as a television/movie viewer, related merchandise consumer and gamer I can tell you what I ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY DON'T WANT TO SEE...

1> Nothing that involves real world "players" and a their characters. ugh. Gamers was kinda funny, and the D&D cartoon was perfectly acceptable as an only choice 20 years ago, but NO. This should be avoided like the plague.

2> No hard rock (or any "modern music") soundtracks. If the movie takes place in a fantasy world with fantasy characters, it must have fantasy music. Not heavy metal. I don't care what the writer listened to when he played the game. This is probably an even bigger offense than #1 because at least the real life players thing has a 1% chance of working.

3> Adult Swim is good for cheap or disgusting laughs for drunks, potheads, and people 20 minutes from bed. I can't think of any original programming on Adult Swim that is taken seriously. Also,as much as kiddifying or modernizing pop culture characters from the 80s for a new audience that probably wont care anyway annoys me to no end, a d&d movie or tv show should just be a good fantasy story. Therefore, blowing a big potential audience with an 11pm time slot is ridiculous.

And now some things I prefer...

I prefer a continuing TV series to a movie. A TV series should have a large cast. If a movie is done, it should probably still have a core group of 5 at the very least.

"Classic" D&D with lots of fantastic monsters should be animated. Unless you have a huge budget, great SFX that don't need to be hidden in night-shots or rain and a director who hates shaky cam. An urban-oriented or pulpy Eberron story could work as live-action BUT as someone else stated, that doesn't really work for a "D&D" branded movie.

Basically, just make a GOOD fantasy movie. With actual character development and equal parts comedy, drama and action. And cool fight scenes in fantastic locations against classic d&d monsters. And make sure if a rust monster hits someone's sword...the sword rots and doesn't heal itself 5 minutes later.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm not a writer. I don't have a pitch of my own. However, as a television/movie viewer, related merchandise consumer and gamer I can tell you what I ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY DON'T WANT TO SEE...

1> Nothing that involves real world "players" and a their characters. ugh. Gamers was kinda funny, and the D&D cartoon was perfectly acceptable as an only choice 20 years ago, but NO. This should be avoided like the plague. [/quote]

Agreed. This style works for gamer in-jokes, like The Gamers or OOTS, but not for broad-market appeal. Heck, it could also work for an artsy movie, in the vein of The Science of Sleep, but I don't think it would appeal to general audiences.

2> No hard rock (or any "modern music") soundtracks. If the movie takes place in a fantasy world with fantasy characters, it must have fantasy music. Not heavy metal. I don't care what the writer listened to when he played the game. This is probably an even bigger offense than #1 because at least the real life players thing has a 1% chance of working.

3> Adult Swim is good for cheap or disgusting laughs for drunks, potheads, and people 20 minutes from bed. I can't think of any original programming on Adult Swim that is taken seriously. Also,as much as kiddifying or modernizing pop culture characters from the 80s for a new audience that probably wont care anyway annoys me to no end, a d&d movie or tv show should just be a good fantasy story. Therefore, blowing a big potential audience with an 11pm time slot is ridiculous.

I do believe these were directed at me.

Why do people assume that fantasy movies have to have 'period' music? Or worse, massive orchestral arrangements with Latin choirs? Now, I'll admit, I'm a fan of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, but just because it's traditional doesn't mean that going a different direction is bad.

Now, if you can wrangle John Williams or Hans Zimmer into making a score for you, go for it and make epic traditional fantasy, but I know what type of music I listen to, and what types of games my friends enjoy, and we prefer 'cool and edgy' to 'formal and grandiose.'

As for Adult Swim, well, Venture Bros. is a damn well-made show, good enough that they can get away with making super-low-budget stuff for the rest of their line-up. And of course there's The Boondocks, which is well-animated and gets a lot of press because it's controversial. I don't think you're going to get tons of controversy about gamers, but being in the same place as a show like The Boondocks means better ratings and more exposure.

Cartoon Network also produced the highly-popular Clone Wars series, and they get decent ratings with their anime, which for the longest time included Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, which also feature groups of adventuring individuals fighting bad guys -- one group for loot (bounties), the other to complete a quest.

Traditional styles of fantasy are fine, but postmodernist genre-mixing seems to be pretty popular with the kids these days. Even if you don't seem to value the opinions of drunks and potheads, if they buy PHBs and subscriptions to D&D Online, they could snort coke off the legs of hookers and Hasbro would still be happy.

 

[Darth Shoju]

...if they buy PHBs and subscriptions to D&D Online, they could snort coke off the legs of hookers and Hasbro would still be happy.

But if they post up videos of themselves doing lines off their PHBs on YouTube there could be a problem.

 

[Darth Shoju]

1> Nothing that involves real world "players" and a their characters. ugh. Gamers was kinda funny, and the D&D cartoon was perfectly acceptable as an only choice 20 years ago, but NO. This should be avoided like the plague.

Personally I thought the Lords of the Basement pitch was great. I'd see it in a heartbeat.

 

[Odhanan]

Pitch me your ultimate D&D movie

Okay.

So it's got little people who have like, the most evil and powerful artefact of all, but they have to escape because the dark ghostly bad guys come for them... It'd be directed by Peter Jackson.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't have a whole lot down, but if you did Eberron (lightning rails, Sharn, airships, Emerald Claw, and CGI warforged) I'd be happy.

 

[Whimsical]

To any writer, producer, or anyone involved in the creation of media: I have a request. If you include any non-caucasions (and I certainly encourage that you do, as the movie's setting is D&Dland, not Olde England,) please break The Brotha Rule (as The Matrix has) instead of showcasing it.

Thank you very much. I do appreciate it. Among many others.

Oh, and I would love to see an Eberron movie. The Harry Potter books and movies has trained the world to accept a magical society.

 

[ivocaliban]

As for Adult Swim, well, Venture Bros. is a damn well-made show, good enough that they can get away with making super-low-budget stuff for the rest of their line-up. And of course there's The Boondocks, which is well-animated and gets a lot of press because it's controversial. I don't think you're going to get tons of controversy about gamers, but being in the same place as a show like The Boondocks means better ratings and more exposure.

Cartoon Network also produced the highly-popular Clone Wars series, and they get decent ratings with their anime, which for the longest time included Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, which also feature groups of adventuring individuals fighting bad guys -- one group for loot (bounties), the other to complete a quest.

I agree on the matter of Venture Bros. and the Clone Wars, but let's not forget Samurai Jack. For a while that was the only reason I bothered to watch Cartoon Network.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

The first 2 books of the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spellsinger

Looming invasion, foul-mouthed otter, stoner wannabe rock star, what more do you need?
Oh, did I mention most of the characters are fuzzy?

It'd be epic, and have an awesome soundtrack.

Highly recommend the series, even if just for a good read.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Thanks! I'm curious though - who do you prefer for Drizzt: Mark or Adrian?

Definitely Mark. In fact Phil Athans (NY Times Best Selling author and FR Novels Editor) and I had a conversation a year ago about who we would cast as Drizzt and Mark was his choice