Dungeons & Dragons is a long running fantasy game and could be a strong fantasy franchise. It was announced recently, January 15th, by Slash film that there is a Dungeons & Dragons television series by Derek Kolstad. He is the writer of the John Wick films including John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019). There is a film in development to be written and directed by the directing duo of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, they directed Game Night (2018). Chris Pine is attached to star in the picture. The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons has really surged with Youtube video of game play with celebrities. There was the PAX gaming convention with Acquisitions Inc. that included author Patrick Rothfuss. An Acquisitions Inc. D&D book came out in 2019.
A game session had long time fan Vin Diesel. Another series, Critical Role, launched the Legend of Vox Machina, which became a comic book and now animated series on Amazon Prime. Actor, Joe Manganiello had his own Youtube campaigns. So we’ve seen how popular fantasy can be with the Lord of the Rings films, Game of Thrones, and now an Amazon Prime series in development by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. Hasbro has a little bump from Dungeons & Dragons association with Stranger Things, but it looks like the toy company wants to fully use its D&D property. Wizards of the Coast which owns the Magic: The Gathering card game bought TSR in 1997. Filmmakers might also look at MTG as a fantasy property. Hasbro purchased Wizards of the Coast in 1999. It has a successful franchise in the Transformers films. Dungeons & Dragons could be the next franchise.
Dungeons and Dragons was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson from fantasy versions of miniature war games. This was in 1974 which had three booklets in a box. D&D set the standard for role-playing games; these are games that allow players to act as their characters through dice rolls, work with other players, and speak as their characters in the game. The dice was polyhedral, not just cubes, but pyramids and gem shapes. The first hardback for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was the Monster Manual published in 1977, a pivotal year for fantasy and sci fi. This was followed by the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. These were mainly at hobby stores and there were adventures found in published booklets called modules.
There was some controversy that eventually became the tv movie Mazes and Monsters (1982). Tom Hanks starred as Robbie Wheeling, a college student obsessed with a role-playing game, but the real life account has been disproven. Starting in 1983, D&D entered Saturday mornings with the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. There really wasn’t a tie-in to the game, in 2006, the DVD release Dungeons & Dragons - The Complete Animated Series had a booklet that gave information to bring the characters into the game. In 1984, everything changed for Dungeons & Dragons with the release of the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. Their campaign, Dragonlance, was the series that really launched D&D in the fantasy section of bookstores.
There was a 2008 animated movie, Michael Rosenbaum played the leader Tanis Half-Elven, Kiefer Sutherland was the wizard Raistlin, and Lucy Lawless voiced the only cleric, Goldmoon. The fantasy world dominated by dragons is an interesting twist with the loss of gods and the clever Kenders (read Hobbits). Dragonlance has great potential for a diverse cast. Joe Manganiello is a strong supporter of D&D, he could be the knight Sturm Brightblade or Caramon Majere, the twin brother to the wizard Raistlin. Keep this casting going, we can have Felicia Day, another gamer and actress in The Guild, as Tika Waylan, former barmaid and aide to the Companions. Casting fans as characters would be great for gamers. The dragon effects may be expensive, I saw a great dragon in the low budget Dawn of the Dragon Slayer (2012), maybe a series would be best for Dragonlance.
In 2000, there was the release of the Dungeons & Dragons movie, it was clunky, the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys tv show version of the game. The filmmakers may have been sincere, but creating an entirely new world loses the appeal of the game. There was actually a sequel, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005) with new characters. The filmmakers continued with another movie that is more adult oriented, Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012). If you would like a fantasy movie that is fun and set in a role-playing game-like world, I would recommend Mythica: A Quest for Heroes (2014). The other game world that would be good for adaptation is Forgotten Realms. It was a fan favorite game world that was created by Ed Greenwood in 1987. There were a number of computer games starting with Pool of Radiance (1988). The first Forgotten Realms novel was Darkwalker on Moonshae (1987) by Douglas Niles.
R.A. Salvatore’s book The Crystal Shard (1988) introduced the fan favorite character, Drizzt Do’urden. He is the Drow elf who has turned against his people who live underground. Drizzt becomes a ranger like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings and in a reverse of the relationship with Eowyn, Drizzt falls for a human woman, Catti-brie. He has a tiny statue that transforms into the panther Guenhwyvar! Ken Jeong played a Drow in Community's "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" (2011) episode which is apparently controversial since he is in blackface, which is referred to in the episode, and actually it is accurate, Drow are elves with pale hair and dark complexions. So it might be a problem unless handled with casting, Michael B. Jordan would be a great Drizzt!, or John Boyega, tall and thin is the only qualification. I think in the same way that Alan Lee and John Howe, Tolkien illustrators, were brought in for the Lord of the Rings movies, I would really like Clyde Caldwell and Larry Elmore to work on Dungeons & Dragons media projects. Dungeon & Dragons' potential as a franchise could hopefully bring in more gamers and bring excitement to the role-playing game!
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