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I thought the original Dragonlance stories were good enough to make into movies.
Heh. they were. It's a really fun movie, in that "Birdemic" way. :D
Folks LOOOOVE Tolkien, but even he got watered down.
And it produced three of the most successful movies of all time. Because LOTR as-was would have made a pretty s*!%ty movie.
Though I will admit to missing the Scouring of the Shire from the movies.
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The title says it all.
Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and a lot of other movies have been there done that. I remember something about that Seventh Son movie that came out. Looked very much like a D&D type of movie but it looks like it got bad reviews.
Hasbro is so focused on a movie that I believe they aren't really worried about the D&D TTRPG game itself, but what exactly could a D&D movie bring that other movies have not? I mean we already have those other god awful movies that people haven't forgotten.
Do you think they could pull off a blockbuster?
I didn't realize their was a only a specific number of big screen fantasy movies that were allowed to be made.
To make a similar point, why do we need more comic book movies? Don't we have enough? Yet in 2016 we are, from my superficial glance, getting 6 new superhero movies from 3 studios (Deadpool, Gambit, Age of Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, Batman vs Superman, Dr Strange, and Civil War).
The LotRs, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones have all been super successful, which shows there is money to be made in the epic fantasy genre, as long as you take the material seriously and don't run afoul of any of the typical big budget movie problems.
Look at it this way: Hasbro has made billions (yes, billions) on Transformers, a property about robots that fight each and turn into trucks. Hell they turned Battleship and the Ouija Board into (bad) movies. Compared to those properties, producing a big budget DnD movie should be a cinch, since you have numerous settings, adventures, novels, and rule books to pull from.
Also, the relative merit of the older movies really isn't a factor that needs much consideration. The average movie watcher at this point has forgotten those movies exist, and there are far far more visible franchise properties that have been rebooted in even less time. Also, Hasbro can provide a far better budget and better talent than anything sweet pea can produce.
So yeah, Hasbro can make a...
In 2015, Hasbro still sells more Ouija Boards and Battleship games than D&D.
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The previous tries at a D+D movie arguably, had none of the factors that made Guardians a success. Those are things that you can't predict from budget alone.
Oh I agree with you. I have never had an interest in seeing DnD 2 and 3, but the first movie I did see, and it had Battlefield Earth levels of badness.
I actually think Hasbro can release a big budget DnD movie that will make money...I just don't think it will actually be very good. They would need to get some good script writers and directors involved, and obviously that didn't happen for any of the Transformers or Battleship Earth.
Unfortunately, any glance at TV or movies can easily prove that you can make tons of money on products that are not actually very high quality.
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There were "better" Transformer movies? Honestly Id rather see another sweat pea D&D movie than one done by Bay.
A real D&D movie should be a little bit of Fellowship, a little bit of Indiana Jones, and maybe a little bit of a four-way buddy movie. That's what I see as "D&D": A bunch of weirdos with nothing in common being forced to work together, explore trap-filled ruins, and take on fantastical monsters.
I think this is the ticket. In fact this is what id love a PF movie to be.
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I'd love to see a decent movie with a bigger budget do one of the G series modules. I think it would be a bit much to tackle all of them or maybe the Village of Hommlet.
Mike
Most of the "classic" modules from 1st Ed AD&D were extremely thin on meaningful character development (other than a "kill monsters, loot their stuff, gain XP" sense). The Egg of the Phoenix might work better for a movie adaptation than the G series. Or, for a "novice adventurers" story, the Saltmarsh series (UK 1-3) would possibly be less "out-there" than Hommlet/Temple of Elemental Evil; plus, it has a "pirate" (OK, smugglers) tie-in.
If they wanted to really do a "D&D adventure series," then they should go the Game of Thrones small-screen route and adapt Age of Worms (for a higher nostalgia factor) or Savage Tide (for a stronger supporting cast; Vanthus makes a dandy obvious foil/villain for over half the AP). WotC owns the rights to both of those, as well.
I don't think a Drizzt movie would work. Reading the novels plays it out in the theatre of the mind, but a movie is all about visuals. I think Drizzt would look too unusual for a wide audience to relate or connect to, and if the audience doesn't relate they won't care. You could take the stories from the Drizzt novels, and adapt the elements into a movie while changing the characters to more human like elves (or even outright humans) for a D&D Game of Thrones feel, but then you'd antagonize the gamer/novel fans.
If there's a primary protagonist, they'd need to be human, or look (mostly) human visually. Otherwise you can write off most of the non-gamer audience.
It could bring a beholder to the table that isn't brain damaged?
ya know...Probably never happen, but Neil Marshall would be an excellent choice for director. He's done medieval-esq action (Game of Thrones and Centurion), and also can really do monsters well (Dog Soldiers, The Descent).
So what exactly could a D&D movie bring to the screen that hasn't already been done?
Easy: Dungeons & Dragons (at least, presupposing you mean non-direct-to-television/video films).
I recently went on record (again) about what I believe is a strong contender.
I'll copy/paste it (though correcting one really weird spelling mistake), because it's all stuff I've said before:
The point is, what strikes as nostalgic to some doesn't to others, and some things are more prone to creating and tugging at those in narrative forms than others. If it's presented in a recognizable way, that nostalgia will be triggered. If it's not, it won't.
The very fans of the old Transformers tend to (as a whole) hate the new movies, and don't feel nostalgia for them, because they're unrecognizable, relatively speaking.
This is true of the three D&D movies as well - or, when they are recognizable, they have such a weak budget, direction, and writing as to fail before the power of your imagination.
Wrath of the Dragon God felt hokey, but D&D-like. Book of Vile Darkness does a very good job of explaining how a mixed group of alignments often suss out (though subverts the expected direction, somewhat). But neither feels epic, despite that, due to the fore-mentioned problems.
And this is the ultimate issue.
You need a compelling story, but you need a solid budget as well. You need to understand what and how people accept when they're looking at a screen - what breaks the illusion and what doesn't.
I think it could be well done. I've long advocated Sons of Gruumsh as a perfect "basic" D&D film. It has most everything you'd need to hit all the tropes: dire rituals, unique magic items, kidnapped nobility, background politics that prevent action, assassination, independent cities on the edge of the wilderness that make enough sense to exist - the perfect recipe for allowing adventurers to do their thing. At 4th level, it's high level enough to allow unusual and interesting effects, but low level enough to avoid most of the game-breaking and world altering conceits. It introduces a city-spanning threat, while avoiding the world-threatening stuff. The narrative actively calls for (and makes way for) the various skills of any given set of PCs. And the costuming would be less severe or strange than for many other similar things. The heroes are actively motivated both by wealth and fame and (potentially) by things other than that (goodness, or whatever) - all the possible motivations are present and comprehensible.
It's not the Best Module Ever Made... but it's probably one of the Most Stereotypical D&D Modules with all the bones needed to create a solid story (i.e. the dialogue and acting).
At any rate, I think that such an adaptation would be possible. If not that, than something similar.
The original 2000 film both failed at understanding D&D or the tropes that informed it and simultaneously reached too far too quickly (going from "level" roughly zero to roughly twenty). These both hampered any sense of cohesive narrative. If things had been scaled properly, I maintain that even with the acting, direction, and other choices remaining, it could have at least been a decently entertaining film, ala Wrath of the Dragon God (though not much better than that).
The thing is, I don't think it needs to be Sons of Gruumsh - point in fact, now that we're two editions past where that was published, I'm not sure that making a movie with those specific expectations in mind will work as well.
But the general idea stands as a solid example of what can work.
Design an adventure like that one (only for 5E, now, I guess). Take that, supply "generic" characters. Flesh those characters out. Write an ensemble script that makes four solid personalities that make decisions and leaves empathy with the audience that takes them through the basics of the adventure. Maaayyyybe show the wear and tear that traps, travel, (random) monster fights, etc. display on the characters (but feel free to fudge it a bit with effects like mending and prestidigitation).
BAM.
D&D film.
Where the first one failed were:
- acting [everyone was in a different movie]
- writing (dialogue, pacing, scripting) [everything]
- character [no one was likable, all were shallow]
- action [it was weak or high end but very uneven]
- scale [from level 0 to level 35 - way too fast]
- genre/tone [comedy, drama, action, adventure, etc. - pick one, dabble in the others in a way that enhances the one]
- visuals [most of them]
- theme [pro-equality and pro-exceptionalism; nature and civilization; autocratic and democratic; what?]
- audience [too patronizingly obscure with too broadly diluted]
Where the second and third films failed were:
- dialogue, pacing [some of it decent, some spotty; acting was occasionally poor as a result of this]
- characterization [generally weak, some was needlessly loose]
- visuals [low-budget]
{- scale [from low to high hero]; 3rd one only, but it worked okay}
That is a vast difference.
Plot holes existed in all of them, but that hardly makes a film poor. Other problems too: all of which can be overcome by nailing the things the current crop failed at.
Fix the listed major problems, and I think you'd have a movie that was as enjoyable as the new Ninja Turtles (which was a much better movie than I thought it would be). Do well enough with it, and you could have a Guardians-type film (which would be amazing, but unlikely).
the Saltmarsh series (UK 1-3)
*sigh*
Make that U 1-3. Also, since WotC has already written up Saltmarsh (in the 3.5 DMG II), there is less work needed for the supporting cast, environment, and town locations in the screenplay.
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Random things that could exist in a D&D (or PF) movie that we haven't seen much of in traditional fantasy fare;
1) Ubiquitous magic. Middle Earth had, like *five* wizards, total, and they were angel/demigods (and only two of them showed up in the books, and Radigast, added for the movies, did squat but talk to animals and ride around on a sled pulled by bunnies...). Most D&D settings have apprentice wizards, working wizards and the occasional uber-wizard. Everyone knows a wizard, or has met a wizard, or is related to a wizard.
2) Healing. In most movies, if someone gets hurt, it's a big deal, and scratches on your face or a limp might last all movie long. In others, the action hero seems to have infinite hit points, and shrugs off the bullet wound, and, generally by the next scene, it's sort of magically gone away, never to be mentioned again. In a D&D movie, people get hurt, and then there's magic, and they get better. It doesn't mysteriously happen off-screen, but is baked right into the setting and it's assumptions, not much more unusual than being able to shoot a gun or ride a horse. This will greatly change the 'drama' of someone being injured, or suffering a 'mortal' wound, and a movie attempting to be true to the nature of D&D or PF should *embrace* this, not run away from it (like the first D&D movie, which kind of pretended that Clerics don't exist at all).
3) Clerics / Religion. Fantasy movies occasionally ignore or dodge the idea of 'real gods' and magical / supernatural powers derived from them. A D&D movie should embrace this as well. The high whatever of the seven gods in Game of Thrones is just an old lech with some social power. Even a *novice* adept or cleric in D&D can call upon holy power to channel energy or cast spells. Even some D&D settings (and much fiction) avoid or downplay that sort of thing, to the point that entire 'parties of adventurers' in novels consist of a bunch of fighters or whatever.
4) Parties. There's no one class that does everything. It's kind of feast or famine, sometimes, with fantasy fare. You've got parties that consist of a dark elf ranger, a dwarf fighter, a human barbarian, etc. with not a single spellcaster (divine or arcane) on one hand and you've got Harry, Hermione and What'sHisNameTheGinger (all casters!) on the other hand. D&D parties are *expected* to have some melee fighters *and* some spellcasters (preferably one arcane and one divine, to the point that some will consider it a non-starter if nobody 'plays the cleric'). Again, embrace this. A D&D story shouldn't be a solo hero story like Conan, or even a buddy-cop story like Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser. Three isn't a crowd, three is one too few! Four minimum! And everybody should have a chance to shine. The wizard doesn't have a spell for every situation. The fighter can't kill *everything* by himself. The rogue gets the kill, because while the fighter was distracting the big bad, with the cleric keeping him up and supported, and the wizard distracting and 'debuffing' the foe with magic, as she snuck around and perforated all of his internal organs in alphabetical order. None of this 'okay, you've opened the trapped door, your role in this scene is over, go get knocked out or something' or 'hide in the back until someone needs healing.'
Those movies where there's one amazing person (played by Tom Cruise or Liam Neeson), and then some random useless hostages, or maybe a plucky sidekick with a single useful trick? This shouldn't be that movie.
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Give it to HBO, let them make a series.
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Actually, what a D&D movie shouldn't do is worry too much about the rules. Literally no one except a few players (and we are't that massive a demographic) will give a f!#& about that, or notice. They really aren't all that important - to use a "literary" example, I wondered if R A Salvatore even really knew anything about the D&D rules, yet his Drizzt books did very well. Maybe a few references to keep the afficionados happy, but that'll be optional and wallowing in the history of D&D would be a sure way to turn off most of the uncommitted.
What a D&D movie needs is a decent plot, decent acting, and decent effects. So far we haven't seen much of that.
Mechanics should not appear :p
Game of Thrones is just an E6 D&D campaign in a low magic setting.
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4) Parties. There's no one class that does everything. It's...
I agree...Farscape did an amazing job of this; although it was science fiction (really more like space fantasy), it really nailed the classic fantasy trope characters.
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In 2015, Hasbro still sells more Ouija Boards and Battleship games than D&D.
ACTUALLY...moneywise...boardgames has made less than WotC over the past few years, and D&D actually HAS made more money than any of the games you've listed just recently in their most recent reports. At least that's what I've gathered from others (Such as their quarterly statements).
Saying their boardgames are individually outselling D&D is a misnomer.
The only real counterpoint is that they have sunk a LOT more money into D&D development than those boardgames, but I don't think the boardgames you've listed are actually selling as well as you think they are recently.
I'll say it again,
The biggest STRENGTH the D&D license has is NOT D&D necessarily, but the novel lines that come with it.
I'd say the best fit is a Dragonlance movie series that is WELL done.
Before anyone points out the previous DL movie, I'll say again, one that is WELL done. In addition, even Cap. America had a movie previously that didn't do so hot, but looking at the ones he's had recently...they make a decent amount of money.
I think Drizzt could be another property that multiple people have mentioned already. DL works more for the nostalgia engine (which is what a LOT of the successful Hasbro movies like GI Joe, Transformers, and others have been working on with their angle), but Drizzt may work better for modern audiences as most of those books have been bestsellers recently.
There are a ton of other properties as well. Baldur's gate and that series is well known enough, or a studio could do something like BI did in the late 90s and create their own series of movies based on a campaign world.
There is a WEALTH of items to make a movie from under the D&D brand without even having to call the movie D&D!
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I think Drizzt could be another property that multiple people have mentioned already. DL works more for the nostalgia engine (which is what a LOT of the successful Hasbro movies like GI Joe, Transformers, and others have been working on with their angle), but Drizzt may work better for modern audiences as most of those books have been bestsellers recently.
Drizzt could definitely be D&D's Wolverine, the character that hardcore fans are well and truly sick of, but can put butts in seats and sell tickets to a larger general audience and build the base for other aspects of the genre to be developed later.
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I think Drizzt could be another property that multiple people have mentioned already. DL works more for the nostalgia engine (which is what a LOT of the successful Hasbro movies like GI Joe, Transformers, and others have been working on with their angle), but Drizzt may work better for modern audiences as most of those books have been bestsellers recently.Drizzt could definitely be D&D's Wolverine, the character that hardcore fans are well and truly sick of, but can put butts in seats and sell tickets to a larger general audience and build the base for other aspects of the genre to be developed later.
/barf
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/barfI think Drizzt could be another property that multiple people have mentioned already. DL works more for the nostalgia engine (which is what a LOT of the successful Hasbro movies like GI Joe, Transformers, and others have been working on with their angle), but Drizzt may work better for modern audiences as most of those books have been bestsellers recently.Drizzt could definitely be D&D's Wolverine, the character that hardcore fans are well and truly sick of, but can put butts in seats and sell tickets to a larger general audience and build the base for other aspects of the genre to be developed later.
I agree with that, but if it makes half a billion bucks, it could spark a D&D-style fantasy movie run like we are seeing with superhero movies right now (which is at least partially because of the equally overexposed barf that is Wolverine, and Hugh Jackman's amazing portrayal of him).
An equally strong performance by Drizzt could greenlight stuff more to the liking of the hardcore fan, who isn't all that into Drizzt himself, just as a good showing from Wolverine has led us into a future where I can see movies about less trendy characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man.
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/barfI think Drizzt could be another property that multiple people have mentioned already. DL works more for the nostalgia engine (which is what a LOT of the successful Hasbro movies like GI Joe, Transformers, and others have been working on with their angle), but Drizzt may work better for modern audiences as most of those books have been bestsellers recently.Drizzt could definitely be D&D's Wolverine, the character that hardcore fans are well and truly sick of, but can put butts in seats and sell tickets to a larger general audience and build the base for other aspects of the genre to be developed later.I agree with that, but if it makes half a billion bucks, it could spark a D&D-style fantasy movie run like we are seeing with superhero movies right now (which is at least partially because of the equally overexposed barf that is Wolverine, and Hugh Jackman's amazing portrayal of him).
An equally strong performance by Drizzt could greenlight stuff more to the liking of the hardcore fan, who isn't all that into Drizzt himself, just as a good showing from Wolverine has led us into a future where I can see movies about less trendy characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man.
Im not disagreeing I just had to throw up mentally thinking about it. Though I dont think D&D has a shot in hell of mimicking Marvels success in actuality.
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I would have felt the same about Marvel's success, actually, prior to the X-Men movies...
EDIT: No, seriously. They made an Iron Man movie. AN. IRON MAN. MOVIE.
EDIT 2: AND I WATCHED AND LOVED IT. What the actual heck, Marvel? You can't just... start a massive multi-movie project with an Iron Man movie! It'll never sell! That's just redicul- iwanttoseethismovieagain,ineedthismoviesobad,shutuptakemymoney,ineedtowatch allthemovies
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I KNOW. AND I WANT TO SEE IT. WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK.
Incidentally, I'd previously made a post that I, for one, thought was pretty great. It was pretty large, and I thought it was pretty good. Lousy Incognito Mode Chrome, Server Goblins, and Lazarus not having been set to "on" for Incognito...
The really, really short version, is:
- it's not hard to get all the elements of a good fantasy film together; there are many films and shows that do this well
- it's not hard to get all the elements of a good ensemble cast, writing, and direction; there are many films and shows that do this well (including Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy)
- it's not hard to get the visual effects - practical, visual effects - necessary to make a solid, powerful movie
- it's not even that hard to get most of these into a single movie or show
What has proven elusively difficult so far, however, is getting all of those into a D&D movie.
Set's fourth point is almost exactly what I was saying and describing (and one of the reasons something like Sons of Gruumsh would be so solid as a D&D film).
There was some other stuff, and a large list of great D&D-like films and shows, with some honorable mentions and stuff. Meh. Not feeling like retyping it all up. Ah, well.
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Brian BlessedBRIAN BLESSED is seventy-eight, so I'm not sure about that. The Icewind Dale trilogy is quite crap, in my opinion - it was the first thing that Salvatore wrote and it was pretty clunky. The second trilogy was better, and the origin story too.
Fix't
Are we talking a D&D movie JUST utilizing hasbro properties (drizzt, etc) or a movie about playing D&D that cuts between a fantasy story and what playing the game is like? I think the latter would be more interesting, and there are several fan films that take that approach already.
Are we talking a D&D movie JUST utilizing hasbro properties (drizzt, etc) or a movie about playing D&D that cuts between a fantasy story and what playing the game is like? I think the latter would be more interesting, and there are several fan films that take that approach already.
There are quite a number of films that do the latter, and, though it's still a good idea for a film, I'd say that genre is covered more thoroughly than a fantasy film that actively does the game (in general) justice.
That's the thing. If you have the former, you've problems with competing against pretty solid films (such The Gamers and Dorkness Rising), whereas if you go with the latter you have to compete against... the 2000 film, Wrath of the Dragon God, and Book of Vile Darkness.
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Well, anybody who knows the history of D&D movies hates Courtney Solomon with a passion. He is single-handedly behind the suck that is D&D movies.
Because of this, the term "Dungeons and Dragons" is box-office poison. After you've sonde a Syfy Original picture, they can't put anything on the silver screen and get traction behind it.
So here's what I'd do...
The beginning of the movie would be released as a Teaser Trailer.
The camera would start in a fantasy city street. A tight shot moving into a tavern. The first table would have an old man in robes with a grey beard, a human in leathers, and two halflings. They are all passed out in their ale. The camera will slide past them quickly to the common room, where everything changes. This whole sequence will be a one-shot (thought with lots of CGI)
This room is like the cantina from Star Wars. Among the crowd are:
- A halfling in reptile skins with a small dinosaur on the table.
- Elves is skull paint
- Orcs and half orcs, wearing fine clothes and glowing tattoos. Reacting ar disdain to something uncouth.
- A table with a couple of goblins, a hobgoblin and a bugbear.
- Various other humanoids.
They are all drinking raucously, but not brawling. There will be a huge slate setting betting odds flanked by a warforged and a gnoll for security. It's doing gangbuster business.
The camera will move past to a huge balcony, packed to the gills. As they move out, it will go past and widen out showing that they are in Sharn and the scale of the city. They will move up to the Race of the Eight Winds, and the camera will move up to follow one rider as the wind through the city, racing and fighting. Our new protagonist will not do well in the race and eventually crash. Fade to black.
It will open up POV-style on the rest of the party looking down on him.
Why will this work?
- Using Eberron as the title will let gamers know it's a D&D movie while not pushing it in the face of other moviegoers.
- The teaser/opener will establish that this is not going to be like your standard fantasy world. They'll show that it's high-magic/magic as tech/with different races.
- That being said, they need to focus on good characters and story, and not just showing off the world. Gee. If only the company had a large stable of writers who had proved themselves with novels based on their game universes. Oh yes, they do.
- Of course Hasbro needs to put up the money, pick good people and then keep their hands off the process. Their track record is questionable. Transformers was Michael Bay, so that's more on him than Hasbro. The rest of their stable has ranged of decent to crap.
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In 2015, Hasbro still sells more Ouija Boards and Battleship games than D&D.ACTUALLY...moneywise...boardgames has made less than WotC over the past few years, and D&D actually HAS made more money than any of the games you've listed just recently in their most recent reports. At least that's what I've gathered from others (Such as their quarterly statements).
Saying their boardgames are individually outselling D&D is a misnomer.
The only real counterpoint is that they have sunk a LOT more money into D&D development than those boardgames, but I don't think the boardgames you've listed are actually selling as well as you think they are recently.
So, what you're saying is, core rule books for D&D outsold Battleship. Not money generated by D&D was higher than money generated by Battleship, that the Player's Handbook for Fifth Edition outsold Battleship in units sold.
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I would have felt the same about Marvel's success, actually, prior to the X-Men movies...
EDIT: No, seriously. They made an Iron Man movie. AN. IRON MAN. MOVIE.
EDIT 2: AND I WATCHED AND LOVED IT. What the actual heck, Marvel? You can't just... start a massive multi-movie project with an Iron Man movie! It'll never sell! That's just redicul- iwanttoseethismovieagain,ineedthismoviesobad,shutuptakemymoney,ineedtowatch allthemovies
Forget Iron Man. They made a freaking Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
I'm not all that fond of Eberron, but using it would be a nice way to distinguish the movie from the generic fantasy tropes.
Dark Sun would also be a way to escape normal tropes. If the new Mad Max helps bring back post-apocalyptic movies, that might be better.
Planescape would be really hard to do. I think we'd need to get a Whedon-level writer to make it accessible through all of the crazy concepts.
Spelljammer... Oh, let's not go there.
I would have felt the same about Marvel's success, actually, prior to the X-Men movies...
EDIT: No, seriously. They made an Iron Man movie. AN. IRON MAN. MOVIE.
EDIT 2: AND I WATCHED AND LOVED IT. What the actual heck, Marvel? You can't just... start a massive multi-movie project with an Iron Man movie! It'll never sell! That's just redicul- iwanttoseethismovieagain,ineedthismoviesobad,shutuptakemymoney,ineedtowatch allthemovies
Forget Iron Man. They made a freaking Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
That's the actual point, though.
They started out with something that I was pretty sure would never fly. And I became a super-fan. Then they went with something else that wouldn't fly. And I continued to be a fan. Captain America? Psch-ff-that'll neve-yesIlovethisfilm!
Thor? Even he got a decent film.
Avengers? Absolutely excellent.
Although they weren't as good (and had serious flaws), even the Iron Man sequels (and the Thor sequel) were enjoyable enough.
Captain-freaking-America-two-now-hardcore-awesome (the official title, you know) was somehow even better than the first, and definitely on par with Iron Man.
By the time they got to Guardians, I was all, "okay, they've got to be jumping the shark now..." clinging to that desperate idea like a drowning man in a sea of madness and nonsense. I mean... there's no way they could make a good Guardians of the Gal-HOLYCRAPITSTHEBESTONEYETWAT.
What Marvel has done is... well, it's nonsense. It's ludicrous. They've put out, what, a dozen movies? And none of them have been terrible. No, I'm serious: compare them to their contemporaries, and you'll find that the worst of them are "okay". Films that should have sucked massively, have instead been... excellent.
two Thor
two Captain America
two Avengers
one Hulk
one Guardians
total: 1+1+2+2+2+3 = 11; okay, I was close
I don't know. If Marvel could pull itself out of the slump that was Captain America and Iron Man, I suspect that D&D could pull itself out of the slump that is its current presentation.
Will they? Only time will tell. But they could, which is the exciting part for me.
I think the best thing they've put out yet is the Daredevil show. I can't wait to see the other Defenders series and then the Defenders mini-series.
Okay, I've not seen this for two reasons (one: it's Daredevil, two: it's television, which I don't have), but this... dang it. This makes me want to watch that.
Grr... *shakes fist at awesome Marvel stuff*
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I would love it if they did sort of a Gamers-style set up, where it starts with the kids in the basement, or at some kind of Adventurers League event that sit at the table, and the DM begins running.
The guy that is the DM becomes the narrator of the movie, and then you have the movie shift into the imaginations of the characters.
I think it could work, AND could get people excited for the game itself.
Anyway, those are my thoughts...
That's a movie that you and maybe 6 other people would buy tickets for.
I wouldn't be one of them.
It could be done well. I'm thinking of the framing sequence for Princess Bride.
But it would hard as hell to pull off. Much harder than just doing a good straight fantasy movie.
I agree, especially since (having read "As You Wish" by Cary Elwes) the Princess Bride was so difficult to make. I still think it could be really cool, if they could handle it well...
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•Using Eberron as the title will let gamers know it's a D&D movie while not pushing it in the face of other moviegoers.•The teaser/opener will establish that this is not going to be like your standard fantasy world. They'll show that it's high-magic/magic as tech/with different races.
•That being said, they need to focus on good characters and story, and not just showing off the world. Gee. If only the company had a large stable of writers who had proved themselves with novels based on their game universes. Oh yes, they do.
•Of course Hasbro needs to put up the money, pick good people and then keep their hands off the process. Their track record is questionable. Transformers was Michael Bay, so that's more on him than Hasbro. The rest of their stable has ranged of decent to crap.
Interesting notions. Eberron was pretty much designed from the ground up to showcase everything in D&D, while adding some new stuff (such as Warforged, Changelings and an entire race focused around Psionics, which are a bit of an oft-ignored bastard stepchild in settings like the Realms and Greyhawk, shoved into a corner, at best).
I'd be all for that. By using Eberron racial standards (naturalist orcs, necromancer elves, dinosaur-taming halflings), it would pull away from Tolkien elves, halflings, orcs, etc. it would help to carve out a niche for itself, and disinvite the inevitable comparisons to the Lord of the Rings / Hobbit movies.
The farther it gets from Tolkien, IMO, the better.
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Interesting notions. Eberron was pretty much designed from the ground up to showcase everything in D&D, while adding some new stuff (such as Warforged, Changelings and an entire race focused around Psionics, which are a bit of an oft-ignored bastard stepchild in settings like the Realms and Greyhawk, shoved into a corner, at best).
I'd be all for that. By using Eberron racial standards (naturalist orcs, necromancer elves, dinosaur-taming halflings), it would pull away from Tolkien elves, halflings, orcs, etc. it would help to carve out a niche for itself, and disinvite the inevitable comparisons to the Lord of the Rings / Hobbit movies.
The farther it gets from Tolkien, IMO, the better.
Agreed on all points.
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To respond to Tacticslion - I agree that it was mind boggling that Marvel made a successful movie about Iron Man. Even more mind boggling is that the whole successful Marvel Movie trend started with an obscure character that previously didn't have a comic series of his own - Blade.
Of course, there were a lot of failures of comic book movies before 2000 compared to their successful ones. Even Batman and Superman had horrific beginning movies in the late 1940s. (Seriously, Wayne Manor is a suburban house, and Batman keeps his outfit in a file cabinet?)
I digress. My point is that it is possible to make a very good D&D movie. It will need the right talent, the right budget, and the timing for the right release moment - which would easily be upset if Hasbro just tries for one or two out of the three.
Hasbro still wants to make money, so they will try. The real deciding factor is if they will settle for making a bunch of money with a mediocre attempt that is sure to rake in a tad more than invested; or if they will risk it by going out on a limb in an all or nothing strategy that could either make a bomb of a movie or a blockbuster. In short, how much will they risk rather than making an Eragon movie clone?