New D&D movie(s) on the way

[~ZombieWife~]

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.

I would totally watch this. :)

[Werthead]

Hasbro has filed a lawsuit against Solomon in an attempt to stop Warner Brothers' development of the new film.

That escalated quite quickly.

Hasbro cleverly have only sued Solomon's production company, not Warner Brothers themselves, probably aware that the WB could bring superior legal firepower to bear against them. Hasbro's argument may actually have more merit than previously thought, with Hasbro asserting that production of the two sequel films as direct-to-DVD movies does not satisfy the clause of the original contract, which they claim specified that the films had to be theatrical features in order to prevent the five-year reversion clause kicking in. Hasbro also claim that they and Solomon reached a legal agreement several years ago to allow him to produce the third film, suggesting that at that time Solomon accepted that he couldn't make a movie without Hasbro's permission (however, it's also worth noting that Solomon wanted to use the Book of Vile Darkness name, which wasn't covered by the original deal, and I wouldn't be surprised if he claimed that the deal was for that). Also, Solomon's assertion that his rights were upheld in a previous arbitration are correct, but that arbitration was held in the 1990s before the first film even came out, and hasn't taken into account subsequent developments.

This one is going to run and run I can tell. For now, it looks like Hasbro has won the initiative round and scored minor damage on Solomon, but may be risking an attack of opportunity in response.

[Werthead]

Solomon counter-sues! Solomon and his production company, Sweetpea, are demanding that Hasbro's claims to the D&D movie rights be struck off and the company forcibly prohibited from using the D&D name in relation at all to any of their future movie projects.

There's a hearing on 25 March 2014. Sounds like neither side is prepared to back down.

[DaarioKnowsBest]

A movie of the 80s D&D cartoon would be dope.

[Jace, Extat]

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.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I once had a dream that my party and I got surrounded in a slavers' camp by hundreds of enemies and Vin Diesel arrived to rescue us. That was back in the days when I used to get fucked UP and play DnD.

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.

I've thought this for a long time. It'd be best served as a comedy, as the best thing about tabletop is just doing stupid shit with your nerdy friends. I always had this little fantasy of having all of the non-essential characters be played by the DM, as well as having his voice, and have A-listers do cameos as plot-centric characters. That's just me.

[WTFSalami]

I think an Icewind Dale trilogy, with flashbacks to the most important moments from The Dark Elf Trilogy would be the best way to go. Maybe even have the very first scene from IDT be a scene of young Drizzt being trained by Zak, and continue returning to it to flesh out the Dark Elf culture and to hit on the important moments of Drizzt's growth.

Dark Elf Trilogy by itself would be a brutal watch on the big screen. 2 whole movies set underground in darkness with only faerie fire for light sources? Nah, I would have no interest in that at all.

[Werthead]

The Crystal Shard is a no-brainer as a movie. It has a dragon (briefly), it has an ensemble cast, it has a somewhat unusual setting and it brings together the traditional fantasy races but in very different ways. So Drizzt's an elf, but one that is hated and feared, whilst Regis is a halfling but a total arsehole and as far from the hobbits as you can get. Plus it's (more or less) stand-aloneish, so if it bombs you're not left with an incomplete storyline.

Dark Elf would be very, very difficult to do. In fact, I'd be more inclined to do a six-part movie series (The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, The Halfling's Gem, The Legacy, Starless Night and Siege of Darkness) - maybe five-part because Starless and Siege do run over some of the same ground - and leave the Dark Elf stuff to a spin-off TV series. That way you can get away with recasting Drizzt as well (since he's a lot younger).

I get the impression that Hasbro would love to turn D&D into a big, multimedia franchise as Disney have done with the Star Wars and Marvel movies, and they can do a lot with the franchise if they want to. Whether they can do it well - Hasbro did sign over one of their most promising franchises to Michael Bay, after all - is another question.

[Durckad]

I've thought this for a long time. It'd be best served as a comedy, as the best thing about tabletop is just doing stupid shit with your nerdy friends. I always had this little fantasy of having all of the non-essential characters be played by the DM, as well as having his voice, and have A-listers do cameos as plot-centric characters. That's just me.

Aside from the utter lack of A-Listers, have you seen The Gamers or its sequel, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising? They're low budget comedies (or in the case of the first one, no budget) and they're pretty much exactly as you describe, capturing the often utter absurdity of tabletop gaming.

I get the impression that Hasbro would love to turn D&D into a big, multimedia franchise as Disney have done with the Star Wars and Marvel movies, and they can do a lot with the franchise if they want to. Whether they can do it well - Hasbro did sign over one of their most promising franchises to Michael Bay, after all - is another question.

Well, to be fair to Hasbro, I'm sure they made a buttload of money off the Transformers movies so they probably don't think it was that bad a deal.

[Werthead]

Aside from the utter lack of A-Listers, have you seen The Gamers or its sequel, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising? They're low budget comedies (or in the case of the first one, no budget) and they're pretty much exactly as you describe, capturing the often utter absurdity of tabletop gaming.

The Gamers III: Hands of Fate came out last month and is also pretty good.

Well, to be fair to Hasbro, I'm sure they made a buttload of money off the Transformers movies so they probably don't think it was that bad a deal.

Sure, from a financial perspective the Transformers movies did very well. From a creative/critical standpoint, not so much, but they don't care about that quite so much.

[Jace, Extat]

Aside from the utter lack of A-Listers, have you seen The Gamers or its sequel, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising? They're low budget comedies (or in the case of the first one, no budget) and they're pretty much exactly as you describe, capturing the often utter absurdity of tabletop gaming.

Well, to be fair to Hasbro, I'm sure they made a buttload of money off the Transformers movies so they probably don't think it was that bad a deal.

Never heard of them. Netflix?

[Greywolf2375]

Dark Elf would be very, very difficult to do. In fact, I'd be more inclined to do a six-part movie series (The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, The Halfling's Gem, The Legacy, Starless Night and Siege of Darkness) - maybe five-part because Starless and Siege do run over some of the same ground - and leave the Dark Elf stuff to a spin-off TV series. That way you can get away with recasting Drizzt as well (since he's a lot younger).

I get the impression that Hasbro would love to turn D&D into a big, multimedia franchise as Disney have done with the Star Wars and Marvel movies, and they can do a lot with the franchise if they want to. Whether they can do it well - Hasbro did sign over one of their most promising franchises to Michael Bay, after all - is another question.

Agreed for both Dark Elf being difficult and for what the success of IDT+ would be able to be. if they actually produced it as a serious movie/franchise I could see each movie getting to the $600m mark.

I think an Icewind Dale trilogy, with flashbacks to the most important moments from The Dark Elf Trilogy would be the best way to go. Maybe even have the very first scene from IDT be a scene of young Drizzt being trained by Zak, and continue returning to it to flesh out the Dark Elf culture and to hit on the important moments of Drizzt's growth.

Dark Elf Trilogy by itself would be a brutal watch on the big screen. 2 whole movies set underground in darkness with only faerie fire for light sources? Nah, I would have no interest in that at all.

While I think the DE trilogy wouldn't be the best choice, they could get around the darkness similarly to what happened later on - have a side/subplot of the story be that the drow are planning an attack above ground and are getting used to the light.

I've thought this for a long time. It'd be best served as a comedy, as the best thing about tabletop is just doing stupid shit with your nerdy friends. I always had this little fantasy of having all of the non-essential characters be played by the DM, as well as having his voice, and have A-listers do cameos as plot-centric characters. That's just me.

While that might be fun to watch, I don't think it would be very successful - if something like the IDT trilogy is done it could work just like the spate of parody movies that starting a decade ago but as a standalone without anything of the genre to support it that would go straight to DVD. That being said, if they were to cast it I would have to submit that Simon Helberg (Howard from TBBT) play the DM - the impersonations of movie stars he did when he was DMing a session was hilarious.

[Werthead]

The court case begins in the next few weeks.

To recap, Warner Brothers want to make a big-budget D&D movie with the name Chainmail. They have joined forces with Sweetpea Entertainment, who made the first three (terrible) live-action films, to do this.

Hasbro have claimed that Sweetpea no longer have the D&D movie rights, because they failed to 1) release a new film every five years as agreed (Book of Vile Darkness came out seven years after Wrath of the Dragon God) and 2) failed to release films to the cinema; the second and third movies were both DVD/TV films. Both of these clauses were in the original movie deal signed between Sweetpea and TSR way back in 1991 (!). Hasbro have signed a deal with Universal Pictures to develop a D&D film, one that is speculated may also involve pre-existing D&D characters (even if Sweetpea and WB win the fight, they only have the rights to the generic D&D spells and monsters; they don't have the rights to Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms or any of the characters etc).

A new factor has surfaced, however. The judge has delivered a preliminary warning that WB commissioning and writing a script before getting the film rights may itself constitute a breach of copyright, which would set an enormous legal precedent for all of Hollywood. It would mean that Marvel can't write a Spider-Man script and keep it on file for rapid development should Sony lose their rights, for example. So suddenly this legal tussel has attracted a lot more attention.

[The Reckoner]

Is there anything stopping WB from releasing an "original" sword and sorcery epic without the D&D brand on it? Like, maybe they lift the concept of the genasi and call them elementals, the dragonborn/draconians and call them Scaled Folk? This assuming WB wasn't going to dip into Eberron or Dark Sun for their movie.

The Servant of the Shard would make for a great Dungeons and Dragons movie, I think. Having read through the Drizzt novels, this is one that really hooked me from the get-go and held on whereas the others were a bit of a slog. Heck, the Sellswords Trilogy would make a great film trilogy.

[Werthead]

Sweetpea/WB only have the rights to the D&D core rulebooks from 2E and I believe 3E. They do not have the rights whatsoever to any of the game worlds, established characters or specific monsters from those settings. So they can use beholders and drow (and generic fantasy things like elves and dragons anyway), but not draconians or saurials.

This does go both ways, though. Hasbro/Universal could make a Forgotten Realms movie, but they couldn't use beholders or magic missiles in it. The Dragonlance animated movie Hasbro made back in 2008 ran into this problem, in fact.

That's all assuming Sweetpea/WB have the rights. If it is ruled they don't, then Hasbro and Universal can run wild and do whatever the hell they want :)

[Galactus]

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.

That's not *quite* true. D&D steals like a magpie but excretes takes on stuff that often become fairly distinct: Mind Flayers and Beholders, for instance.

[Fez]

A new factor has surfaced, however. The judge has delivered a preliminary warning that WB commissioning and writing a script before getting the film rights may itself constitute a breach of copyright, which would set an enormous legal precedent for all of Hollywood. It would mean that Marvel can't write a Spider-Man script and keep it on file for rapid development should Sony lose their rights, for example. So suddenly this legal tussel has attracted a lot more attention.

That seems like a really weird warning. If, prior to the rights being secured, the script isn't being used for profit, being publicly shared, and it isn't materially harming the rights holder, how is it breaching copyright? That would seem to imply a whole lot of people, beyond just Hollywood writers, are violating copyrights all the time.

[Werthead]

The first legal shots are fired.

The outcome of the initial legal clash between Hasbro and Sweetpea (backed by Universal and Warner Brothers, respectively) was inconclusive. Both sides employed sharp lawyers, arguing that Courney Solomon has had twenty years to turn D&D into a movie franchise and failed and that Hasbro now deserves the rights 'back' (slightly inaccurately, as the movie rights were sold long before Hasbro bought WotC, or indeed before TSR was absorbed into WotC), whilst Solomon's lawyers pointed out they have a script in development with WB as a 'tentpole' project right now. The judge seemed rather annoyed by the whole thing and asked both sides to settle out of court, but that's not happened.

Both Universal and WB can see the big franchise potential here: a franchise that can generate not just big character films like the DC and Marvel things, but a whole universe where you can dramatically switch genres between films. Neither side are going to give up that potential - however remote of actually being successful - easily.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

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.

I have to agree. Unless it's something specific to one of the series of books (like say Drizz't or something) or to one of the specific universes (like Dark Sun) just make your Fantasy movie and slap whatever name on it you like. I guess you'd have to be aware of particular copywrite infringments if you used the same names for monsters and creatures and such, but that seems like a fairly easy workaround. Seems to me you could make what is essentially a D&D themed movie without having to buy the rights.

ETA: Do any of you remember a series of books called Guardians of the Flame? Where a group of students get sucked into their tabletop Fantasy world by their scheming DM/Professor? It was kind of cheesy, but I always thought it might make for a decent Tween type Fantasy flick.

[Leofric]

ETA: Do any of you remember a series of books called Guardians of the Flame? Where a group of students get sucked into their tabletop Fantasy world by their scheming DM/Professor? It was kind of cheesy, but I always thought it might make for a decent Tween type Fantasy flick.

Yes I remember that series by Joel Rosenberg. The first book would make a good movie or you could do the whole book series as a television show. It got pretty dark at times like the incident that started the war on the slavers' guild. The whole using knowledge and technology from our world to help them fight magic in the new one was fun.

[Prince of the North]

ETA: Do any of you remember a series of books called Guardians of the Flame? Where a group of students get sucked into their tabletop Fantasy world by their scheming DM/Professor? It was kind of cheesy, but I always thought it might make for a decent Tween type Fantasy flick.

Yes, I read a few of those in junior high, I think. I was reading a lot of things like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc. then and playing a lot of D&D.

Yes I remember that series by Joel Rosenberg. The first book would make a good movie or you could do the whole book series as a television show. It got pretty dark at times like the incident that started the war on the slavers' guild. The whole using knowledge and technology from our world to help them fight magic in the new one was fun.

I thought it was kind of fun that they had gun powder, etc., too!