Will Chris Pine roll a d20? Meet the ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ movie cast
Let’s talk about Dungeons & Dragons. With success of media like Critical Role or Adventure Zone, there’s a greater resurgence now more than ever for people getting into the long-running tabletop RPG. After all, Dungeons & Dragons is fun with characters as varied as the imagination of the players and stories as big as the mind of the Dungeon Master.
Given that context, however, does a Dungeons & Dragons movie truly make sense? There was an attempt back in 2000. Oh boy. It was certainly something. Not good, but probably a film to watch if you’re stoned and/or drunk with a group of friends. With the rise of Dungeons & Dragons in the pop culture landscape in recent years, a movie isn’t that surprising.
All we can do is hope it won’t be as bad as Warcraft or the last Dungeons & Dragons movie.
Behind the scenes
Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who wrote the surprise hit Game Night, have signed on to direct the feature version of Dungeons & Dragons. The screenwriting duo also penned the latest version of the script as well. Their draft was based on a previous draft written by Michael Gilio (Kwik Stop). Currently, the game’s rights are controlled by Hasbro.
Over the recent years, film rights for Dungeons & Dragons were being fought over. Eventually, Warner Bros emerged victorious in 2015, seemingly. That didn’t last long before rights went to Paramount, who will jointly produce the film with Hasbro/eOne. This makes sense as Paramount has a production & distribution deal with Hasbro.. Brian Godner will produce for Hasbro and Jeremy Latcham is producing for eOne.
Who’s part of the cast?
Chris Pine is set to star in the upcoming adaptation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That’s pretty much all we know about everything to do with the film itself. Yeah, the plot details for Dungeons & Dragons are being kept under wraps so tight you think you would have to fight an angry chromatic dragon at, like, level three. People who play D&D got the reference so it’s fine.
Maybe when the rest of the cast is announced, we’ll get a better understanding of what’s going on here. Maybe. For now, everyone doesn’t know what’s going on with that film except those probably actually involved with it. But if you want to see Chris Pine in something upcoming, then check out Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day.
Will it be good?
That’s such a loaded question. The issue with adapting a tabletop RPG like Dungeons & Dragons to the big screen is that while there’s lore and history, the game doesn’t truly have a set story to follow, you know? There are campaign guides and the like, but what makes Dungeons & Dragons work is playing the game, crafting the lore around it, being in the thick of things.
The mediums that have worked best for adapting Dungeons & Dragons as a whole is podcasts, YouTube, and Twitch streams of people playing games. Critical Role, Adventure Zone, Dungeons and Daddies, etc, they all work in those mediums best using theatre of the mind and following their stories in real time.
Even when there are adaptations of these podcasts, they are based on the stories told with characters already familiar to fans going in, you know? That’s not to say the film is impossible here, but it’s just difficult in the framework of the game. The only way it could work was some sort of fish out of water story. Even someone adapting a Dungeons and Dragons game they played. It’s . . . wait and see. Let’s wait and see.
