Dungeons & Dragons Movie Can Succeed Where Other Fantasy Franchises Fail

The upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie has a chance to succeed where other fantasy franchises have failed in modern filmmaking.

The upcoming Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves could kick off a fantasy franchise that can succeed where its peers have failed. The movie is based on the popular tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. However, while grounded in the world of role-playing games, the film has a unique opportunity in terms of the degree of freedom that the D&D universe can afford.

Despite a lengthy development hell, the film is set to be released in 2023 and stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Reje-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Starring Sophia Lillis and Hugh Grant. In addition to this promising cast, the Dungeons & Dragons movie boasts an impressive director-writer duo, John Francis Daly and Jonathan Goldstein, who worked on Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Game. famous night. The pair wrote the screenplay with Michael Gillio, based on the story of Gillio and Chris McKay. While the cast and crew are important, the universe the film is inspired by presents an opportunity to spawn a franchise that has found success where other fantasy franchises have disappointed.

How The Dungeons And Dragons Film Is Different To Other Fantasies

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves One of the simpler ways that Honor Among Thieves can stand apart is its lack of definitive source material. While the Dungeons & Dragons game has several pre-written stories, the tabletop nature A part of the game that gives players a lot of freedom to create their adventures is called Events in the D&D Community. This means that Dungeons & Dragons authors, led by Chris Pine, have the same freedom to write their own campaigns, acting as their own dungeon masters. This freedom means that Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves can have familiar fantasy elements without necessarily being tied to a pre-existing story.

Honor Among Thieves is not based on an existing D&D campaign, but an original story. The directors promoted the film at SDCC 2022, saying they made a movie that wouldn't alienate non-fans of the original board game. At SDCC, Goldstein instead stated that their goal was to make a film infused with the spirit of the D&D games, which could allow the film to succeed in ways that other fantasy franchises could not.

Why Other Fantasy Franchises Failed

It's worth exploring why other fantasy franchises in modern filmmaking have underperformed, including the failed Narnia adaptation. A recent example is Warcraft. Directed by Duncan Jones and released in 2016, Warcraft was originally intended to start a franchise based on the game of the same name, That's the problem with movies. When released in some markets, the film will be titled Warcraft: The Beginning, underscoring Legendary's commitment to the planned franchise.

This had a negative effect on Warcraft's script, which was too focused on setting up future installments rather than telling a cohesive story. There are some natural unanswered questions left unexplored to tease out more of the story. This was arguably the biggest reason Warcraft failed, as the script was the most criticized aspect of the film when it was released. Still, the film was a moderate success at the global box office, earning more than $430 million on a $160 million budget, the most ever for a Duncan Jones film. While this could be read as a success to some extent, it still hasn't received a sequel, negative reviews being a big reason.

The Chronicles of Narnia faced different problems than Warcraft because it was based on a pre-written story. Since the films were based on C.S. Lewis novels, they were forced to fit within the framework of the original text. At first this was not a big deal, as the 2005 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe received positive reviews and earned enough money to make a sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Prince of Caspian Sea. The first film is also considered largely faithful to the source material, with minor changes made to suit the film medium.

The subsequent Chronicles of Narnia film, Prince Caspian, deviated from the source material. This spawned Voyage of the Dawn Treader, ending the franchise. This is generally attributed to the fact that the third film deviated significantly from its respective source material, receiving negative reviews from fans and critics alike. Warcraft and The Chronicles of Narnia failed for different reasons, ranging from a clumsy focus on building a franchise to the pressure to follow a story that already existed. These are two obstacles that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Rogues can avoid entirely.

Dungeons And Dragons’ Nature Can Spawn A Vast Franchise

The game allows players to invent their own stories in various fantasy realms. Each realm has a different set of creatures, powers, positions and tones. From the campaign settings of Forgotten Realms, the high fantasy world of Honor Among Thieves party cheer, to the space sci-fi worlds based on the horrors of Ravenloft or Spelljammer, Dungeons & Dragons has a huge Different settings can generate countless stories.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves wisely chose the Forgotten Realms setting, the more typical fantasy world most first-time D&D players enter. This means that, despite adhering to a specific setting, tone, character types, and creatures, "A Thief of Honor" can tell a fantasy story without the burden of previous stories. Hopefully, the filmmakers will be able to make an enjoyable movie on their own, rather than trying to blatantly set up a sequel, which is the problem that undermines Warcraft. However, the nature of D&D means that the film could spin off a sprawling franchise with different subsections tied to different settings of classic Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and courses.

Honor Among Thieves could begin the series' high fantasy run, building on the characters and storylines introduced in the film. However, the aforementioned other campaign setup means that a ton of related franchises in different flavors could be created under the Dungeons & Dragons moniker. From a space sci-fi franchise to rival Star Wars and Star Trek, to an action-horror set at the Battle of Ravenloft, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Rogues A big franchise that other attempts have failed due to the unique aspects of the role-playing game it's based on.