D&D General [What if?] John Boorman directs Gygax's D&D movie

[Sacrosanct]

Also, Gary's involvement in the D&D cartoon didn't stop it from leading it's slot for the 2 years it was running. Just saying.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

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[Parmandur]

Probably better than the Courtney Solomon travesty, but probably less good than Excalibur or Princess Bride. Still probably a good commercial for the game.

 

[LordEntrails]

Speaking of a D&D Movie, has their actually been anything reliable mentioned in the last year? I think the last reliable thing I heard was is was scheduled for something like a 2023?? release? Which means a script and cast should be close right?

 

[Parmandur]

Speaking of a D&D Movie, has their actually been anything reliable mentioned in the last year? I think the last reliable thing I heard was is was scheduled for something like a 2023?? release? Which means a script and cast should be close right?

I think the last date info was 2021, and the psychologist from Bones is directing?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I suspect we'd be looking at a very dubious cult movie and given its position in time and movie history it might have done more damage to the D&D brand than the largely forgotten 2000 travesty. Orson Wells being involved doesn't bode well, either, at that point.

I suspect if the script was taken away from Gygax and given to a real writer, and maybe Wells lost interest and we got Boorman in a more positive mood we might have had something decent, still basically a cult movie but a good one. Ironically though even that might not have been great longer term because it might fossilise D&D too much in the minds of many, whereas actual flops or "kid's stuff" don't really do that.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Orson Wells circa 1980:

Orson Wells being involved doesn't bode well, either, at that point.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Orson Wells circa 1980:

As I noted, he was to do the narration parts only. Great voice for that.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I suspect we'd be looking at a very dubious cult movie and given its position in time and movie history it might have done more damage to the D&D brand than the largely forgotten 2000 travesty. Orson Wells being involved doesn't bode well, either, at that point.

I suspect if the script was taken away from Gygax and given to a real writer, and maybe Wells lost interest and we got Boorman in a more positive mood we might have had something decent, still basically a cult movie but a good one. Ironically though even that might not have been great longer term because it might fossilise D&D too much in the minds of many, whereas actual flops or "kid's stuff" don't really do that.

This is the second time I've seen this comment about Boorman being a bad choice at the time and I don't really get it. As I mentioned above, right after this he went onto make a movie that was nominated for a couple Academy awards, Golden globes, and BAFTA awards.

Orson Wells circa 1980:

To be fair, just because he was drunk during this ad doesn't mean he would have been a horrible actor in a movie. Other notable actors who were wasted on set?

• Margot Robbie in "The Wolf of Wall Street" ...
• Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in "Fight Club" ...
• Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in "Black Swan" ...
• Jennifer Lawrence in "Catching Fire" ...
• Daniel Radcliffe in "Harry Potter" ...
• Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music"
• Spencer Tracy in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
• Peter O'Toole in "Laurence of Arabia"
• Billy Bob Thorton in "Bad Santa"
• Gary Oldman in "Bram Stokers Dracula"
• Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now"
• Richard Burton in everything he did

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is the second time I've seen this comment about Boorman being a bad choice at the time and I don't really get it. As I mentioned above, right after this he went onto make a movie that was nominated for a couple Academy awards, Golden globes, and BAFTA awards.

Boorman's general skill isn't the problem. His suitability for a project like this is. I mean, look at his other projects from this era. More broadly, this would have been a bad, bad time to make a D&D movie generally. Its the tail end of auteur era, which Boorman is part of, where films are for filmmakers, not audiences and Star Wars etc had started to change things but not for directors like him.

As such, you'd likely have had a very phantasmagorical and perhaps metaphorical movie that had little to do with D&D and which probably wasn't very watchable, nor really lasting as a classic. With a different director, say Rob Reiner or John McTeirnan or someone, and being made in the mid 1980s or later, sure, that could have ended well, but in that era, with that director and writer? No.

Also you somewhat slanderous if amusing scuttlebutt list of "wasted on set" people misses the point - Welles was giving a lot of phoned in and terrible performances and had no physicality by that point. He'd have been bad in anything but a cameo.