Warner Bros/Hasbro Teaming Up For New Dungeons & Dragons Movie

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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Warner Bros/Hasbro Teaming Up For New Dungeons & Dragons Movie


Warner Bros and Hasbro are rolling the dice and taking a chance on a new Dungeons & Dragons film.

Up until recently, Hollywood has had a pretty terrible habit of taking things that geeks love and transforming them into cinematic abominations so terrible they're hardly recognizable. Case in point, the 2000 film adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons. Filled to the brim with terrible effects and even worse acting, it was panned by filmgoers, critics and D&D fans alike. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it would be followed by a pair of sequels that, by many accounts, were even more wretched than the first.

If you think that'd be enough to teach the film industry to leave <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/dungeons%20and%20dragons?os=dungeons+and+dragons>Dungeons & Dragons alone, you'd be wrong. In a joint announcement earlier today Hasbro's Allspark Pictures, in cooperation with Warner Bros Pictures and Sweetpea Entertainment, confirmed that they intend to move forward with plans to make a new feature film based off of the beloved role-playing game. Speaking about the movie, Warner Bros' Greg Silverman expressed excitement over the possibilities a new D&D movie series cold offer. "This is far and away the most well-known brand in fantasy, which is the genre that drives the most passionate film followings," he said. "D&D has endless creative possibilities, giving our filmmakers immense opportunities to delight and thrill both fans and moviegoers new to the property."

Dungeons & Dragons' owners at Hasbro expressed similar enthusiasm for the new movie. "This is such an enormous opportunity to bring the rich fantasy setting of the Forgotten Realms to life and, together with the creative powerhouse of Warner Bros use movies to tell the stories that have enchanted passionate D&D fans for decades," said Stephen Davis, Habsro's Executive Vide President and Chief Content Officer. "D&D is the role-playing game that started it all and now we have the opportunity to ignite a franchise for its legions of avid fans in a way never done before."

All of this comes, of course, following the resolution of a long running dispute between Dungeons & Dragon's owners at Hasbro and Sweetpea Entertainment over the franchise's film rights. Back in 2013, Warner Bros <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123831-Warner-Bros-Acquires-Dungeons-Dragons-Film-Rights>acquired Sweetpea hoping to take advantage of its possession of the film rights to produce a new D&D movie. Hasbro, alleging that Sweetpea had let those rights expire, moved <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136186-D-D-Movie-Lawsuit-Will-Proceed-to-Trial>to stop the film's production. Today's announcement signals the end of Hasbro's lawsuit following negotiations that we can only assume ended in a fashion that was agreeable to all of the involved parties.

No release date has been announced for the new movie, but Warner Bros has confirmed that it has a finished script penned by screenwriter David Leslie Johnson and will also overseen by producer Roy Lee (How to Train Your Dragon along with executives from Hasbro. Here's hoping the end product doesn't make us want to gouge our eyes out.

Source: <a href=http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150803006131/en/Warner-Bros.-Pictures-Hasbro-Partner-Dungeons-Dragons#.VcAQT_lVikp>Business Wire



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Zontar

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Feb 18, 2013
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This is being made, and for some reason I can't think about anything other then wanting them to just make a Transformers, G.I. Joe and Battleship crossover movie.
 

RealRT

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Feb 28, 2014
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Unless it has Jeremy Irons and Bruce Paine, I don't see the point of it.
 

mrverbal

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May 23, 2008
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Note that the guy who directed the horrorfying abomination that was the 2000 film is one of the producers. Hopefully only in a "shut the fuck up and sit in a fucking corner" kind of way, due to him owning the rights for a while, but still.

This will almost surely suck.
 

JSoup

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Jun 14, 2012
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mrverbal said:
Note that the guy who directed the horrorfying abomination that was the 2000 film is one of the producers. Hopefully only in a "shut the fuck up and sit in a fucking corner" kind of way, due to him owning the rights for a while, but still.

This will almost surely suck.
If anything good came of that movie, it was the IP being turned over to SyFy who made a surprisingly good third movie.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I think it means to say "could offer," not "cold offer."

NeutralDrow said:
*rolls Will save*

*critical failure*

I'm genuinely looking forward to this.
Fortunately, I rolled a 20.

And the prior movies gave me a situational bonus.

I mean, I'll wait and see what it looks like and how it is received, maybe even watch it if it sounds like it's not a horrific abomination.

Unless the big bad is a horrific abomination.

JSoup said:
If anything good came of that movie, it was the IP being turned over to SyFy who made a surprisingly good third movie.
There was a third one? How did I miss this?
 

Jopoho

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Nov 17, 2009
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octafish said:
Hey guys look a D&D themed rollercoaster, we should ride that one!
Maybe the movie will focus on the episode where the kids met a Nazi pilot, who eventually helps them save the day.
 

TallanKhan

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Aug 13, 2009
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JSoup said:
If anything good came of that movie, it was the IP being turned over to SyFy who made a surprisingly good third movie.
Your'e not wrong there. Yeah it was low budget, the acting wasn't great and most of the creatures looked as if the person who designed them had never opened a Monster Manual. However, it did kinda have the feel of a game of D&D, the quest, the party, the loot. Plus the party in the film did what my chaotic evil character did on a number of occasions (much to the chagrin of our DM) and murder an entire village basically for shits and giggles.
 

Basement Cat

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Jul 26, 2012
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With superhero movies ruling the box office and Peter Jackson showing how good fantasy films can be (The Lord of the Rings, mostly--The Hobbit was tolerable) I can see someone producing a good D&D movie.

How to Train Your Dragon is a surprisingly good movie. I just watched HtTYD 2 with my nephew and was surprised that the sequel was good, too. So even if the producer for HtTYD was responsible for that horrible 2000 D&D movie he's clearly matured as a creator.

He couldn't have gotten much worse, after all. ^_^
 

mrverbal

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May 23, 2008
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Basement Cat said:
With superhero movies ruling the box office and Peter Jackson showing how good fantasy films can be (The Lord of the Rings, mostly--The Hobbit was tolerable) I can see someone producing a good D&D movie.

How to Train Your Dragon is a surprisingly good movie. I just watched HtTYD 2 with my nephew and was surprised that the sequel was good, too. So even if the producer for HtTYD was responsible for that horrible 2000 D&D movie he's clearly matured as a creator.

He couldn't have gotten much worse, after all. ^_^
The HTTYD producer is not the director of the 2000 D&D film; this appears to have multiple producers.
 

JSoup

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Jun 14, 2012
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Zachary Amaranth said:
There was a third one? How did I miss this?
Like many SyFy Channel movies, they get shown once and then never again, unless it was amazingly popular.
 
Jan 12, 2012
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I think it has potential. From what I've heard, it's not a D&D movie, it's a Forgotten Realms movie, which means there is actually a decent world they can build off. You know WotC has been looking for a way to get Drizzt to the screen for a long time now, and an adaptation of the Crystal Shard books could be really good (if the internet doesn't go nuts about a group of baby-sacrificing spider-worshippers with painted black skin... that could be a problem).
Nope, no problems here.
008Zulu said:
Just watched this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwXH1c--BzQ
I wonder how long it'll be before Good Bad puts that up here. Also, any tabletop gamers will get a kick out of this review/mockery of the movie, complete with a critique that shows how how the whole movie is an allegory for the shift from 3.5 to 4e.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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JSoup said:
Like many SyFy Channel movies, they get shown once and then never again, unless it was amazingly popular.
What was the name? Is there any like DVD release at all?

Part of the problem is I stopped paying attention to SyFy when they started phasing out the shows I cared about. It's not a boycott or a protest, but nothing was grabbing me back. Once Stargate, Eureka, and Warehouse 13 were all gone, there was...nothing. I mean, maybe there were good shows, but nothing that really caught my eye.
 

Solkard

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Zachary Amaranth said:
JSoup said:
Like many SyFy Channel movies, they get shown once and then never again, unless it was amazingly popular.
What was the name? Is there any like DVD release at all?

Part of the problem is I stopped paying attention to SyFy when they started phasing out the shows I cared about. It's not a boycott or a protest, but nothing was grabbing me back. Once Stargate, Eureka, and Warehouse 13 were all gone, there was...nothing. I mean, maybe there were good shows, but nothing that really caught my eye.
Dungeons and Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1733125/