A new Dungeons & Dragons movie was announced last year as part of a deal between Hasbro and Warner Bros, and now we've got an update from the film's producer Roy Lee on how the studio plans to shape the film.
“This new Dungeons & Dragons will be a Guardians of the Galaxy-tone movie in a Tolkien-like universe," he tells Collider. "Because when you think of all the Hobbit movies and The Lord of the Rings, they have an earnestness to them, and to see something fun, a Raiders romp inside that world, I feel is something the audience has not seen before.”
A Guardians tone in a Tolkien world that's also a bit like Raiders Of The Lost Ark? Take my money now! But how Lee plans to pull this off is the bigger question, one that no doubt hinges on the direction of the screenplay. And it sounds as if things in that department are going well.
Lee adds that “everyone who’s involved with it now, especially the writer of the first draft is a fan from the very beginning starting with Chainmail, which turned into Dungeons & Dragons, so you’ll see things that are very faithful to the source material as well as new elements are being incorporated with help from Wizards of the Coast, who are giving a lot of input on the script.”
So, when might production begin? “I think it will really be moving forward quickly," he explains, "and I don’t anticipate it not getting greenlit this year, mostly because Warner Bros. has DC now, and LEGO, and the Harry Potter universe that’s being cultivated as their franchises. I believe they see Dungeons & Dragons as something that could be cultivated as a multi-universe movie where there will be spinoffs from the first movie being in Forgotten Realms and subsequent movies being in different worlds.”
Crafting a larger cinematic universe around the game isn't a major surprise. Given that most studios are keen to develop movies with built-in sequel and spin-off possibilities, the whole premise of Dungeons & Dragons is a perfect fit for that model.
Image credit: Hasbro
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