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I'm with jeff, Gaiman writing a script for Forgotten Realms movie would make sense.
as long as the realms burns, I'm happy.
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Well, he has written episodes for Babylon 5 and Doctor Who, so it's not like he's above being work for hire for popular franchises.
But I just don't see it. I don't see how his very unique style and any of the bigger D&D settings would work together.
I think werewolf guy from true crud is writing the movie.
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Can we also get J.K Rowling to write a script for Dragonlance while we're at it? LOLI'm with jeff, Gaiman writing a script for Forgotten Realms movie would make sense.as long as the realms burns, I'm happy.
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I doubt Neil Gaiman would stoop to the level of "D&D movie". Any movie by him would just blow everyone's mind, so I think it would be best to have him write a script for any movie he wants. No guidelines or boundary. "D&D movie" means you're starting the fight at a severe disadvantage due to the negative perception and past failures. If I was an artist like him I don't think I would care for that particular kind of challenge.I would not use D&D in the movie marketing, but the campaign world - Eberron or Dark Sun or Planescape. If you look at the previous D&D movies they were set in Generichawk, and they were pretty much basic fantasy movies with a few D&D references in them. If you want to get butts in seats, then show them something that's not just Tolkien clone #47.
I've always thought that doing an Eberron movie and starting it out following a bog-standard party of elven ranger, dwarf fighter, human wizard and Halfling rogue into a tavern. Then you see that it's populated with all sorts of exotic things, you slip past the faux party and see the balcony looking over Sharn. People are excited abnd betting and you see the race of the eight winds zooming by. The camera exits the balcony and follows the race while the opening credits roll.
In just a couple minutes you've established that this aint your grandpappy's fantasy world.
DnD and fantasy book fans are pretty niche overall, when looking at the overall size of the audience needed for a blockbuster. There is not much of a general populace which has grown sick of traditional fantasy for the weird route to work. Mostly because there is actually very little real traditional fantasy that has made it to the big or small screen. It's down to pretty much the LotR/Hobbit movies, and Game of Thrones. Most other things are already far removed from traditional fantasy (The upcoming Bright or the current Magicians and American Gods) or haven't really caught on (how often do you hear people chat about the Shannara show around a water cooler at work)
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Well, he has written episodes for Babylon 5 and Doctor Who, so it's not like he's above being work for hire for popular franchises.
But I just don't see it. I don't see how his very unique style and any of the bigger D&D settings would work together.
I can see Gaiman writing a decent Planescape movie. It could have someone go through a portal to a magical land they don't initially understand, a magical land filled with bizarre characters and wondrous images and inventions. Lessons would be learned, and the lost traveler could return home or make a new home in the strange new land.
The faerie-punk flavor of Planescape might appeal to a myriad of fans: steampunk, hipsters (the jaded berks calling kip in the Cage are totally hipsters!), princess fairy fans, goths, regular punks, and regular fantasy fans. It would also be multi-cultural, which is a big selling point. Especially if they plane-hop to different types of planes, like the City of Brass and Arborea and Ysgard and the Cavern of Thought (Lovecraftlite!) and the Palace of Judgment. And especially if the POV character is also from an "exotic" ethnicity.
But I was originally thinking I like the art of DiTerlizzi and the words of Gaiman, and combining them would be fun. I wasn't proposing that Gaiman write the D&D Movie. Although it's an intriguing idea. I was thinking more of a graphic novel written by Gaiman and illustrated by DiTerlizzi.
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Well, he has written episodes for Babylon 5 and Doctor Who, so it's not like he's above being work for hire for popular franchises.
But I just don't see it. I don't see how his very unique style and any of the bigger D&D settings would work together.
I can see Gaiman writing a decent Planescape movie. It could have someone go through a portal to a magical land they don't initially understand, a magical land filled with bizarre characters and wondrous images and inventions. Lessons would be learned, and the lost traveler could return home or make a new home in the strange new land.
The faerie-punk flavor of Planescape might appeal to a myriad of fans: steampunk, hipsters (the jaded berks calling kip in the Cage are totally hipsters!), princess fairy fans, goths, regular punks, and regular fantasy fans. It would also be multi-cultural, which is a big selling point. Especially if they plane-hop to different types of planes, like the City of Brass and Arborea and Ysgard and the Cavern of Thought (Lovecraftlite!) and the Palace of Judgment. And especially if the POV character is also from an "exotic" ethnicity.
But I was originally thinking I like the art of DiTerlizzi and the words of Gaiman, and combining them would be fun. I wasn't proposing that Gaiman write the D&D Movie. Although it's an intriguing idea. I was thinking more of a graphic novel written by Gaiman and illustrated by DiTerlizzi.
so very close to Neverwhere while also very close to Stardust with a little Mirrormask sprinkled on top? While I agree this might work in a Gaimanesque style, he has written that story already. Three times. Now we're back to the question: why would he write it a fourth time?
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Folks im guessing this going more the direction of Battleship than Stardust, but I suppose imagining whats possible cant hurt :)
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Well, he has written episodes for Babylon 5 and Doctor Who, so it's not like he's above being work for hire for popular franchises.
But I just don't see it. I don't see how his very unique style and any of the bigger D&D settings would work together.
Well put. That's what I was trying to articulate (badly). His unique style would be better suited for a Planescape movie.
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I just hope they don't do a Dragonlance movie that is based on the novels. They read as terrible session transcripts from a group of special snowflake players and a GM who just wings it as they go along.
Actually the dragonlance books strike me as probably the easiest to adapt...most of that "session transcript" feel would be almost certainly lost in squeezing each book into a 2 hour movie.
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I just hope they don't do a Dragonlance movie that is based on the novels. They read as terrible session transcripts from a group of special snowflake players and a GM who just wings it as they go along.
To be fair, ALL RPG based novels read that way to me
Regardless of how they may read (I personally didn't have a problem with them) the "session transcript" thing about the Dragonlance novels is a misconception. While a few things from the early playtest sessions (like Raistlin's encounter with Bupu) made it into the novels, the novels were written separately (though they obviously followed the plot outline of the Dragonlance modules.)
My only problem with them was when the groups split up and when we come back to one of them, they had found a magic hammer and negotiated a treaty with the dwarves and had quite obviously had some solo adventures and leveled up between chapters. REALLY read rough there. I understand they went back and wrote those stories later... but later is later and for that original trilogy it was a problem.
Honestly, Dragonlance shouldn't be made into a movie for the same reason I don't want Drizzt's books turned into movies. There's too much going on there. There's no way you could turn the novels into a movie, or even a trilogy of movies and do them justice... and with Dragonlance there is no OTHER story going on that isn't revolving around the War of the Lance. Just like Wheel of Time, it's a setting with ONE story that the whole the setting revolves around.
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Dragonlance would be a fun GoT-like series. Just less soulcrushingly nihilistic.
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Dragonlance would be a fun GoT-like series. Just less soulcrushingly nihilistic.
It however would probably be far far too expensive as a normal series
This season of GOT, which so far has seen some of the most dragon action, costs 10 million an episode. Dragonlance as a show has potentially far more dragon action to show, not to mention probably a greater need for prosthetics with all the non-human races and such, on top of all the normal costs associated with a fantasy movie (costumes, props, battle scenes, etc). I think it would be incredibly difficult to pull off as a series without them resort to putting a ton of stuff offscreen ("Man I am sure glad we escaped that dragon!") or just look really really cheesy.
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I agree with Smilo. TV is where it's at these days, if you want to do honor to a book or a complex, multi-cast setting. I could see a Netflix show entitled "The Dark Elf" which would start at Drizz't birth and take its sweet time (i.e. emerge on the surface as a cliffhanger at the end of season 1).
These days if I can avoid going to the theater I treat that as a win...
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I agree with Smilo. TV is where it's at these days, if you want to do honor to a book or a complex, multi-cast setting. I could see a Netflix show entitled "The Dark Elf" which would start at Drizz't birth and take its sweet time (i.e. emerge on the surface as a cliffhanger at the end of season 1).
These days if I can avoid going to the theater I treat that as a win...
To do that was what? 2 or 3 books crammed into one season and there was a LOT going on in those books. I think fans would still be pretty disappointed even with a season format.
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To do that was what? 2 or 3 books crammed into one season and there was a LOT going on in those books. I think fans would still be pretty disappointed even with a season format.I agree with Smilo. TV is where it's at these days, if you want to do honor to a book or a complex, multi-cast setting. I could see a Netflix show entitled "The Dark Elf" which would start at Drizz't birth and take its sweet time (i.e. emerge on the surface as a cliffhanger at the end of season 1).
These days if I can avoid going to the theater I treat that as a win...
They would need to either stop adapting the novels after The Dark Elf trilogy or heavily rewrite all the stuff that comes after. The fans will not be happy in both cases anyway.
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They would need to either stop adapting the novels after The Dark Elf trilogy or heavily rewrite all the stuff that comes after. The fans will not be happy in both cases anyway.
I think they shouldn't care too much about what "fans" might think about it. Fans were complaining about all those changes Peter Jackson made to the Lord of the ring even when 99% (or more) of those changes made absolute sense with regard to the movie format. Fans are complaining about the changes made to the GoT books, even when the author himself is actively collaborating on those changes.
And in both examples the shows were/are extremely successful because it works for the mainstream audience. So I'd argue that any creator of a new D&D movie should do the same thing, even if it makes the fans cry out loud. Because in the end, we're a minority way to unimportant to be relevant to the success of such an endeavor.
Fans are complaining about the changes made to the GoT books, even when the author himself is actively collaborating on those changes.
Success aside, fans of the books have a right to complain about the GoT HBO series. For crying out loud, they're revealing secrets in that series that he hasn't even revealed in the books yet, and they've been following them since the mid-90s. That's 20 years! I've watched part of the series (first couple seasons), and I've actually found it to not be that impressive either. I think the man's done a major disservice to his decades-long fans of the Song of Ice and Fire series by basically spoiling half of the future books before ever they had a chance to read them. Sure, the two are different stories in many respects, but they follow the same narrative. These other D&D series you guys are talking about are finished. There's nothing to reveal in them that people haven't already seen. GoT is an entirely different animal.
And for what it's worth, I'm a huge Tolkien fan. Have read through LotR numerous times. I loved all those movies.
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And for what it's worth, I'm a huge Tolkien fan. Have read through LotR numerous times. I loved all those movies.
Same here. And I remember when watching the "Fellowship of the Ring" for the very first time that I nearly left the room just because Jackson let Frodo decide to go to Moria when in the novel, he had nothing to do with it. After a night of thinking, I had to go back to the cinema the very next day just to be able to enjoy the film for the brillant piece of literature adaptation it is.
And I hardly was the worst offended by such changes. ^^
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To do that was what? 2 or 3 books crammed into one season and there was a LOT going on in those books. I think fans would still be pretty disappointed even with a season format.I agree with Smilo. TV is where it's at these days, if you want to do honor to a book or a complex, multi-cast setting. I could see a Netflix show entitled "The Dark Elf" which would start at Drizz't birth and take its sweet time (i.e. emerge on the surface as a cliffhanger at the end of season 1).
These days if I can avoid going to the theater I treat that as a win...
There's less going into these books than you think. A lot of the page count is the descriptive stuff that you'll see in the background while the characters are talking (i.e. like big female bodybuilders dressed like drow priestesses whipping some featherweight ultrathin male marathonians dressed like drow commoners)
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IMNSHO, the movies got worse as they went along - though they were still basically enjoyable.
Dunno. I still don't like the second one too much, especially with all the nonsense about Aragorn thought dead and the totally stupid end where Frodo basically told the Enemy the position of the Ring (and that the Enemy was somehow dumb enough not to get the hint made it worse for me).
The third one I actually enjoyed very much. especially as he took time (dragged out)with the ending. Liked that about the book, liked that about the film.
And the casting was splendid.
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I liked all the LotR movies and the D&D movies had some moments...just not the first one.
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For bad casting I was thinking the Five O'Clock Shadow Haldir and the 19-Going-on-30 Éowyn.
Ha, I didn't notice Eowyn's age, but that five-o-clock shadow on the elf was darn distracting, since all the rest of them had such shiny perfect skin. :)
As for the endings of the third movie. It wasn't so much that it was bad but that after watching it end, then end, then end, then end, then end, I rather didn't want to watch it again. And haven't. In contrast I've seen the first movie three times at least and the second twice.
One of the Star Wars movies was like that, for me. We have the ending, and then another ending (with Anakin-become-Darth), and then another ending (kids being hidden from him and smuggled away), etc., etc. Just interminable setup for a 'sequel' I saw in the seventies...
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I try not to get hung up on changes from literature to movie. For the most part, I think Peter Jackson did a great job capturing the tone and feel of the Lord of the Rings, and was able to back that up with a fairly good cast and props/make up folks. I can go back and enjoy the movies as good fantasy books without necessarily getting hung up on most details.
The Hobbit...not so much. I think those movies don't work as well even as fantasy movies never mind as adaptations.
As for DnD books to be made into movies? I suspect the vast swath of them, including the Drizzt books, just don't have the popularity and name recognition. Sure they could adapt them, and in some ways going off an existing story might make a smoother development process. But given that Hasbro is going to be involved, I just don't expect any adaptation to come across well. Assuming they fall into the "normal folks sucked into the game" idea, I assume all we will get is a by the numbers fantasy movie with a few big name actors and maybe a few easter eggs dropped in
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I just hope they use exciting titles. "John Carter" would have been seen more if it was called "Princess of Mars." If they make an "Azure Bonds" movie, I hope they don't call it "Alias and the Dragon Baits."
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D&D really lends itself to mini series adaptation. I haven't read many of the hundreds (thousands?) of setting novels but none of the ones I have read would adapt well to a movie format.
I have read at least dozens of novels set in the Forgotten Realms or Golarion (and, uh, Quag Keep, I think, set in Greyhawk?), and I've found some to be great generic fantasy novels, or to make great use of the setting, but few, if any, feel like 'D&D' (or Pathfinder), the games (as opposed to game*play*, which would be frightfully dull, I imagine, since a novel is descriptive and gameplay abstracts all of that with stuff like 'hit points').
Almost always, there's one or two main characters, and few if any spellcasters, and barely ever a healer. It's like anything that makes it *D&D* (or PF), and not Lord of the Rings or Elric of Melnibone or Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser or Conan the Barbarian, has been surgically excised from the story.
It's like some of the writers have never played the game, and don't know that it's about *team* success, not individual success, and that a party is required, not just a singular protagonist (who may or may not have a cool magic weapon that let's them punch above their weight class and solo encounters that should require a group) and some dancing minions / NPCs.
I'd want a D&D (or PF) movie to be a sort of Dirty Dozen or A-Team or Scooby Gang or Avengers sort of deal, where there are at least four 'main characters' (no more than six) and teamwork wins the day, not one dude and his magic bling and probably-not-trusty sidekick(s).
Heroes, plural. Not hero, singular.
And no shying away from clerics!
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D&D really lends itself to mini series adaptation. I haven't read many of the hundreds (thousands?) of setting novels but none of the ones I have read would adapt well to a movie format.I have read at least dozens of novels set in the Forgotten Realms or Golarion (and, uh, Quag Keep, I think, set in Greyhawk?), and I've found some to be great generic fantasy novels, or to make great use of the setting, but few, if any, feel like 'D&D' (or Pathfinder), the games (as opposed to game*play*, which would be frightfully dull, I imagine, since a novel is descriptive and gameplay abstracts all of that with stuff like 'hit points').
Almost always, there's one or two main characters, and few if any spellcasters, and barely ever a healer. It's like anything that makes it *D&D* (or PF), and not Lord of the Rings or Elric of Melnibone or Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser or Conan the Barbarian, has been surgically excised from the story.
It's like some of the writers have never played the game, and don't know that it's about *team* success, not individual success, and that a party is required, not just a singular protagonist (who may or may not have a cool magic weapon that let's them punch above their weight class and solo encounters that should require a group) and some dancing minions / NPCs.
I'd want a D&D (or PF) movie to be a sort of Dirty Dozen or A-Team or Scooby Gang or Avengers sort of deal, where there are at least four 'main characters' (no more than six) and teamwork wins the day, not one dude and his magic bling and probably-not-trusty sidekick(s).
Heroes, plural. Not hero, singular.
And no shying away from clerics!
Read Azure Bonds by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb (Manual of the Planes Jeff Grubb!). It has a team of 4 and clerics, but no clerics in the party, but
It's also a party-based adventure, as opposed to a Save The World-based adventure. A warrioress wants her tattoo removed, and things escalate quickly. There's a dragon, a witch, a lich, a cult, and a thieves guild involved. There's humor and serious consequences. The party has a wizard, warriors, and a "bard"/thief. They get a job from a sage. They travel overland from dungeon to dungeon, and there is some convenient teleporting at some parts. There is a chainmail not-quite-bikini and jokes about how ridiculous it is.
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The film has switched from Warner Brothers to Paramount, with Hasbro taking back full control of the movie rights at last. The film now has a definitive release date: 23 July 2021, which seems a bit far out but okay.
No word on what elements or personnel have survived the transfer from Warner Brothers. Previously Rob Letterman was slated to direct (he is right now working on - and I do not jest - the DETECTIVE PIKACHU movie) with Ansel Elgort (BABY DRIVER) starring. The movie was set in and underneath Waterdeep, with the Yawning Portal and presumably Undermountain as major locations. How much of that is still on the cards is unknown.
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Well, At least if it blows up we can find new reasons to hate Hasbro. But on the whole, this has to be a good thing that the rights are finally somewhere where there is a vested interest to protect the brand name and not just toss out pieces of crap. I hope anyway.
The last Transformers movie wasn't overly successful I'd thought...