New D&D movie(s) on the way

[Werthead]

Warner Brothers have announced that they are making a new, big-budget, theatrical Dungeons and Dragon movie. Courtney Solomon - the director of the terrible 2000 movie and the producer of its two direct-to-DVD sequels - is on board as a producer, and David Leslie Johnson (writer of Wrath of the Titans and Red Riding Hood) is writing the script. No director is on board yet, but Warner Brothers are apparently prioritising the project as a big deal.

However, Hasbro (who own Wizards of the Coast) have disputed their rights to make the project, claiming they own the rights and are developing their own movie with Fast and the Furious producer Chris Morgan at Universal. The original movie deal was infamously inept, with no buy-back option and a relatively minor limitation that Solomon has to produce a new film every 7-10 years or so (the exact figure has never been confirmed) to keep the rights. Hasbro are clearly keen to get the rights back. However, Hasbro don't have a legal leg to stand on, as at a previous arbitration hearing Solomon was confirmed as the legal holder of the film rights and nothing has changed since then to alter that. Hasbro retain the film rights to the various worlds (such as Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms) and all of the various novels (such as the Drizzt books), but Warner Brothers now have the rights to the core D&D races, spells and concepts, which could make for a serious legal minefield.

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

[~ZombieWife~]

Wow, this is a hot mess of legal stuff mixed in with ego and weirdness. Whatever happens, fans are owed a decent D&D movie.

[Tobin]

What is this 'new' D&D movie.... I think we would have heard of something like that before.

It's not like they would have put a movie out with a Waynes' brother and a mage who could barely cast magic missle and then suddenly could cast a fireball without batting an eye....

[Myrddin]

I'd rather a Forgotten Realms or an Eberron movie rather than a generic D&D. Or Dragonlance, which would be cooler if a bit off from WotC Hasbro's current game tie-ins.

[Greywolf2375]

I'd rather a Forgotten Realms or an Eberron movie rather than a generic D&D. Or Dragonlance, which would be cooler if a bit off from WotC Hasbro's current game tie-ins.

There's a lot of FR stories, but I think I would prefer a Dragonlance. It seems like since the first trilogy has a complete arc in it they could do that and then try to experiment with new stories. I've never seen the cartoon version, but from what I have heard it's just a hot mess.

[Werthead]

You're not going to see a Dragonlance movie out of the gate. That's a shitload of budget that they'd need.

I think doing the Icewind Dale trilogy is the way to go. It's relatively low in budget, it's fun with some memorable characters and it's somewhat self-contained. Once you have a D&D-branded trilogy out there that's been a big hit, you can justify the probable $200 million minimum that Dragonlance would cost.

[Tobin]

Wandering around looking at D&D media I stumbled across this...

AWWWW!! :love:

[Datepalm]

Wow, this is a hot mess of legal stuff mixed in with ego and weirdness. Whatever happens, fans are owed a decent D&D movie.

Failing a decent D&D movie, sounds like we shall have some decent entertainment following the behind-the-scenes stuff.

[Tobin]

I'd like to see a Dark Sun themed movie. Or, with all the recent focus on zombies, a movie set in Ravenloft might get a boost.

Sadly, kids these days would say Ravenloft was band-wagoning Twit popularity.

[Greywolf2375]

You're not going to see a Dragonlance movie out of the gate. That's a shitload of budget that they'd need.

I think doing the Icewind Dale trilogy is the way to go. It's relatively low in budget, it's fun with some memorable characters and it's somewhat self-contained. Once you have a D&D-branded trilogy out there that's been a big hit, you can justify the probable $200 million minimum that Dragonlance would cost.

Absolutely agree about budget, etc - just figured the Icewind Dale trilogy was too much to bite off. i'd happily be wrong. Drizz't, etc are easily more popular than dragonlance characters and have - though sad to need the comment today - infinitely better - and stronger - female characters.

[ColdDrake]

I'm guessing the financial success of the Hobbit and Game of Thrones helped get this greenlit.

[baxus]

You're not going to see a Dragonlance movie out of the gate. That's a shitload of budget that they'd need.

I think doing the Icewind Dale trilogy is the way to go. It's relatively low in budget, it's fun with some memorable characters and it's somewhat self-contained. Once you have a D&D-branded trilogy out there that's been a big hit, you can justify the probable $200 million minimum that Dragonlance would cost.

if they're to stick with drizzt stories, i'd much rather see "the dark elf" trilogy than "icewind dale".

and i absolutely agree it's about time we got a decent d'n'd movie

[Prince of the North]

I'm guessing the financial success of the Hobbit and Game of Thrones helped get this greenlit.

Yep. The floodgates have opened. Every single fantasy/SF work is going to be heavily scrutinized to see if there's any way it can be a money-maker. I'm glad for this and would love to see a well-done D&D-based movie or series :)

[Werthead]

if they're to stick with drizzt stories, i'd much rather see "the dark elf" trilogy than "icewind dale".

The Dark Elf Trilogy is certainly superior, but it's also much more intensely focused on Drizzt himself. There's still fight scenes and things, but it's a bit less epic. I think it'd be better to do it either later on as a prequel trilogy or as perhaps the basis of a TV spin-off. Icewind Dale, on the other hand, has an ensemble cast, a couple of big battles, dragons (Icingdeath and Shimmergloom), dungeons (well, caves) and everything from desolate wilderness (in Icewind Dale) to forests (in the Savage North) to deserts (in Calimshan) to massive cities (Silverymoon, Waterdeep and Calimport), not to mention guest appearances by a couple of signature Realms characters (Alustriel and, IIRC, Khelben, not to mention the Icewind Dale gang, Artemis Entreri etc). Icewind Dale I think is a much stronger sell, not to mention that The Crystal Shard by itself is fairly self-contained, so if it bombs there's no unresolved cliffhanger issues.

[baxus]

i agree that "icewind dale" as the first trilogy and then "dark elf" as the prequel would maybe make more sense.

on the other hand, i think that the first book of "the dark elf" would make a great breakthrough for later moves.

think about it - an utterly evil society of menzoberanzzan (i hope i spelled that correctly), a boy who grows up in such a society but ends up being completely different and has to hide it to the best of his ability, power struggles among drow families... there's some epic battle scenes material there.

second book would be a bit of a drag with drizzt spending 90% of the time alone in the tunnels of underdark, but i don't think adding some sidequest would be much of a problem.

[Ouroboros]

I'd like a Vin Diesel DnD movie, one that would pretty much just be a Fast and the Furious type action film with him fucking things up all over a fantasy universe. That would be fun.

[Werthead]

Of course, one of the benefits of doing Drizzt is that the lead role basically casts itself.

[StannisandDaeny]

Why did I read that as new David and Dan movie...

[Francis Buck]

I honestly don't see the worth in a D&D movie. For starters, you could pretty much use anything that's in D&D in a separate fantasy world without any trouble. It's pretty generic fantasy stuff. And even the brand-name is not really the most appealing thing in the world. I feel like D&D has a really strong nerd-stigma associated with it, even in this "golden era" of geekdom.

[Werthead]

The more I think about it, the only 'real' D&D movie you can make is, well, a movie about people playing D&D. You could have two narratives, one in the 'real' world about the people playing the game and one in-game (with everything visualised as if it's real). Basically, The Gamers and its two sequels, but with a big budget and in the cinema. That's the only way a 'D&D' movie could work. Otherwise, yeah, either just do a generic fantasy movie or get the rights to some of the specific books.