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Dungeons & Dragons Is Getting a Film Franchise
New submitter IT.luddite sends word that Hasbro and Warner Bros. have announced Dungeons & Dragons will be getting its own film franchise. They already have a script, and they'll be working with production company Sweetpea Entertainment, but they haven't picked a director, yet. They'll have at least some of the people on board who worked on the D&D movie from 2000, which was a flop. The deal between Hasbro and Warner Bros. comes after a prolonged legal battle about who owned the rights to a D&D movie. They note, "All rights for future Dungeons & Dragons productions have been unified and returned to Wizards of the Coast, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hasbro."
"better than the first one" is an almost perfect example of "damning with faint praise" :)
I propose a Kickstarter to buy the movie and tv rights to D&D to prevent Hollywood from making any further craptacular "D&D" movies.
Note to the movie industry: Dungeons and Dragons is a rules framework upon which stories are built, not a story itself. Making a "D&D" movie is like basing a film off "Hoyle's Book of Games."
Suggestion: find a story that has relatable characters doing interesting things in circumstances that make us care about the outcome. Or better, WRITE a story that has relatable characters doing interesting things in circumstances that make us care about the outcome. If you do either of these things you will likely have a popular, profitable film. If you take a collection of one dimensional cardboard cutouts and have them progress through a series of tropes in a totally predicable and intellectually insulting manner and expect it to be successful because of the D&D branding, you will have a commercial flop and be ripped by gamers for soiling The Hobby.
We're gamers. Telling stories is what we DO. D&D is how we do it. Want a good D&D movie? Go to GenCon and ask people their gaming stories. Or better yet, buy the books, roll some dice, and live some of your own. Your script is waiting for you. Go play it.
"Hollywood is again rolling its 12-sided dice and taking a chance on translating the popular “Dungeons & Dragons” role-playing game into a movie."
I couldn't get past the first sentence. It's a 20-sided, and it's die, not dice. If you're going to talk to us nerds about gaming culture, and something as important as D&D, at least make SOME effort. Reporting these days sucks... seriously.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
The movie was an unmitigated disaster, and honestly if this were my property I'd never again let someone try to make a movie based on it.
It was, but the solution isn't shoving it in a drawer, it's turning it over to a better team. The TNG movies were not particularly good (the last one was ridiculous), but the new Trek movies are good. (They have the problem of running too far away from the science and thought-problems, but they are fun to watch). The rotoscoped LOTR was generally hated by all, but the Peter Jackson (although having lots of problems) was a great production to have made.
Joss Whedon could do a fun D&D movie, for example. Thinking about who else might, I am really curious as to what Aaron Sorkin would do with it... "The Tea Party Ogre..."
Do you remember the paperbacks written for D&D?
They sucked, too.
The problem is the D&D universe is meant to be explored and played with. It places little emphasis on character development (as in personality), and even less on storylines. This has carried through to every attempt ever made to turn them into movies, whether for the big screen or for TV.
The biggest problem they face is that there are no "standard" characters that people are waiting to see, because there are so many characters from the various game packs, not one of which had a memorable personality to make them famous. So where something like "Lord of the Rings" had memorable characters like Gandalf that people were waiting to see brought to life, D&D has no such strengths.
I predict another 1-star flop.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.