Game of Thrones, The Princess Bride, Goonies and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are touchpoints for the new Dungeons & Dragons film.
Dungeons & Dragons has definitely enjoyed something of a revival over the last few years. Bolstered in popularity by nostalgic appearances in Stranger Things as well as the popular web series Critical Role, D&D is definitely enjoying a moment. That looks set to continue with the planned, big-budget film adaptation of the game, coming to us courtesy of Paramount and eOne/Hasbro. Already, it promises to be an upgrade on the last time the game went to the movies.
What makes this project especially interesting though is the folks behind it. Directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are the directors behind 2018’s Game Night, and that film’s successful blurring of the lines between game and reality is most likely what we’ll be seeing in the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons film. After all, we saw a straight-up fantasy adaptation at the turn of the century, featuring Jeremy Irons, and it didn’t go down too well.
As well as acclaimed writers, this new project has an impressive leading man in place too, in the form of Chris Pine. Pine has been talking just a little about the project whilst on the press rounds for All the Old Knives. And so far, it sounds exactly as creative and risky as we were hoping it would.
According to Pine, “we had a hell of a fun time making it. There was a lot of laughs. The way that I’ve been describing it, it’s like Game of Thrones mixed with a little Princess Bride, just a smidge of Holy Grail; it’s somewhere in that ballpark. It’s a lot of fun. It’s got a lot of thrills. It’s poppy, it’s 1980 heartfelt, there’s a bit of Goonies in there. My character, he’s the ultimate party planner. I think it’s going to be really good. I mean, who fucking knows, but I think we got a good shot and John and John are killer guys. They know comedy and they know heart and we had a great cast and we had a good time making it. And that’s all you can ask for”.
Whilst we don’t yet know much more about the film, the casting is certainly fun, with Michelle Rodriguez and Justice Smith joining Pine. We’ve been expecting something a little different since the writers talked back in 2020 about it, stating “D&D is such a unique look at the fantasy genre where it is contemporary in terms of the people playing it and the way they speak to each other. So we never wanted to spoof the genre of fantasy or take the piss out of it. But we did want to find another way into it that we hadn’t necessarily seen before”.
We have to admit, we’re very intrigued by the prospect of a large-budget adaptation of D&D doing something ‘a little different’, so this one continues to be high on our radars. The film shot in Northern Ireland last summer and if you’d like to hear more of our thoughts on what it might be about, click here. More news on this one as we hear it.
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