A bit of truly horrible news for you all, something I found out about yesterday via AICN: They're going to be making another Dungeons and Dragons movie. Meh.
"But Rob," you might say, "if Marvel could create a cinematic universe, why can't D&D?" Here's the problem: the difference between D&D and Marvel is that Marvel has established characters. The whole idea behind D&D is that you make up your own character in the game. There are a few established non-player characters within certain campaign worlds, such as Elminster, Drizzt Do'Urden, Mordenkainen, or Szass Tam, but no one outside of the hobby knows who any of those characters are. I, and my Facebook associate Tom Racine, both fear that the only idea the Powers That Be will be able to come up with is the "bunch of kids playing the game get sucked into an alternate universe where D&D is REAL!" trope. Already read that story in The Sleeping Dragon by Joel Rosenberg.
TLDR: Not holding out much hope for the next D&D movie. Watch, I say that now and 5 years from now it'll be a blockbuster! ;)
Take care,
~Rob
Pitch Black being the movie it was kickstarted the Riddick movies. If you look at It more closely you’ll see it’s actually “Ranger Riddick” in space D&D. Necromongers in their gothic plate armor, elemental “wizards” and even oracles of a sort. Now look at Riddick; he has animal handling/affinity, wears light to medium armor, seems more at home in wilds and duel wields daggers. I think he may even be chaotic neutral. So a D&D movie can be done right.
@Mike: Possibly. I never saw Chronicles of Riddick, mostly because I saw Pitch Black and was underwhelmed by it. However, if they actually go through with this and make a D&D movie, Vin Diesel’s going to be the one that, if he were to be involved in it, will lend the project a little more weight and broaden the appeal somewhat. Time will tell.
Could be worse. Could be a live-action version of the cartoon.
Pitch Black was originally supposed to go straight to TV, Chronicles of Riddick had a bigger budget and better writing. It’s one of those movies you’re not going to feel like you wasted your time with.
For what its worth, I’d say not many people outside of fans knew who Tony Stark/Iron Man was, and that movie ended up huge.
It helped that RDJ was brilliant casting for that role.
Not saying the upcoming D&D movie is going to be good….but it has a chance with the right talent. At any rate I’ll watch it…I liked the first D&D movie after all (note I didn’t say it was a good movie…it’s not, but it’s just that I found things that amused me supremely and garnered enjoyment out of that).
The problem with doing a good movie based on D&D is no one involved with making it will ever have played it. You end up with either:
1) Something based on the ‘socially awkward stupid/smart nerd’ stereotype. The ending is usualy tries to be way over the top epic, but falls flat.
Or 2) Bland character personalities obviously all created by one person, with a plot that goes from A to B with the mindlessness of a freight train.
Personally, I don’t think D&D is very well suited to be a stand alone movie. What is needed is a TV series. I am thinking something kind of like Hercules or Xena. With the right writers and some decent actors, it could really be something great.
@Mike: Or perhaps something like what HBO did with True Detective: a story with a set beginning, middle and end, then a new finite story with new characters taking its place the following season?
Your link to the Rosenberg novel seems to be busted.
IIRC, there were at least three novels to the set. Might have been more, but I lost track of Rosenberg after a while.
@D.J. Thanks for the heads up on the link; should be fixed now. Sadly, Joel Rosenberg died suddenly on June 2nd, 2011.
Well, that would explain why I lost track. 🙁 See what happens when you get married and start raising kids…