As wonderfully campy as the first Dungeons and Dragons movie was, it wasn't exactly the best first movie outing for the series. But that hasn't stopped Hollywood from trying, and another movie is schedualed for theater release, though the virus has put it on hold. But this future movie is going to be more than just a D&D movie. Wizards of the Coast is working with it's parent company, Hasbro to add Dungeons and Dragons to quite possibly the strangest film series to ever grace mankind. A series so ridiculous, so ambitious, so ludicrous, it just might work.
Dungeons and Dragons is joining a Cinematic Universe for Hasbro's properties. So far, 4 movies have been announced, and Dungeons and Dragons is one of them. The other three are Micronaunts, G.I. Joe, and (I'm not kidding), My Little Pony. Knowing Wizards of the Coast, the Forgotten Realms will likely be the setting of the D&D part of the franchise. But how would you adapt of The Forgotten Realms into a universe that's also inhabited by microscopic sci-fi heroes, super counter-terrorists, and cartoon ponies? Should any established Forgotten Realms heroes be our characters, or should new one be built from scratch? And how are they going to react and interact when their thrown into the same room with characters from the other three properties?
Do you think this could work? Me personally, I've never heard of a more ambitious project. These 4 properties may belong to the same people, but their so utterly different in setting, lore, tone, audience range, and the sliding scale of cynicism vs optimism. This is such a strange and bizarre concept that I think it could go either way. It's bizarre concept could just as easily carry it to greatness as it could bury it in a nameless grave. What do you think? What would you do if you were the writers for the D&D parts of the universe?
Back when the original D&D movie came out, studios did not know how to take nerdy properties seriously. They weren't in vogue yet, and nobody had wrapped their heads around making anything "fantasy" that was also not extremely campy (a la Willow or Xena) because people basically thought camp was an immutable part of the genre (and basically went on thinking that until Game of Thrones).
Thanks to the prevalence of superhero movies (especially more "out-there" properties like Guardians of the Galaxy was considered when it first was announced) and resurgence of the Star Wars brand, and other huge sci-fi/fantasy franchises that have made nerd-dom chic and mainstream, modern studios might actually have the language with which to approach a project like a D&D movie, language that again-- didn't really exist in the past, to actually make it good.
I'm not claiming it's going to be good. I'm just more optimistic now about the possibility of a good D&D movie than I would have been in 2014.
*Edit* As for the cinematic universe part, I'd be surprised if Hasboro made any attempt to actually tie these movies together like the MCU. Outside of Marvel, cinematic universes have generally underperformed even within the superhero genre with the fizzling of the DCEU, and people are starting to realize it. Outside of the superhero genre they're failing completely with Universal's Dark Universe scrapped. You could argue Fast and the Furious has had some success, but I'd argue those non-core movies were more FF spin-offs rather than truly separate entries in a cinematic universe. So I'm assuming when they say "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", they mean "hasboro is making movies and using a popular buzz-word to get people interested." My guess is if it's anything other than several disconnected titles, it'll be more of a cinematic multiverse with very little overlap.
Like, from a studio perspective, who would a GI Joe/D&D crossover movie be for? GI Joe is typically marketed to young kids to sell toys, and the average D&D player is probably in their 30's (taking into account veteran players in their 50's and new 5e players in their teens and 20's). There's not a lot of overlap there to make me think it'd be worth it to put both things in the same movie, especially having to bridge two very separate genes to do so. So I don't think we should have to worry about a micronauts/GI Joe/D&D crossover any time soon. My little pony though...*shudders*... that could happen...
Neither article mentions D&D as being associated with the Hasboro cinematic universe (aside from having its release date announced alongside GI Joe and Micronauts, but for a studio that's doing so little lately, it makes sense that they announce big titles at once, connected or no), so what is more likely is just that the D&D movie(s?) will be made through Hasboro's Allspark Pictures studio (which a quick Google search confirms), but that not everything done through that studio will be part of the cinematic universe.
Tl;dr, it seems there's nothing to worry about weird D&D crossover movies. Nothing points to D&D being one of the 5 properties being included in the Hasboro universe.
As a low budget animated web series, a Hasbro Cinematic Universe would be ridiculously fun, and I'd love to see that happen!
Seriously, however, for the big budget film, to avoid it just being yet-another-generic-fantasy-but-with-D&D-names, but actually uniquely feeling like D&D itself, I think they would be wise to look more at successful superhero movies than other fantasy movies.
Neither article mentions D&D as being associated with the Hasboro cinematic universe (aside from having its release date announced alongside GI Joe and Micronauts, but for a studio that's doing so little lately, it makes sense that they announce big titles at once, connected or no), so what is more likely is just that the D&D movie(s?) will be made through Hasboro's Allspark Pictures studio (which a quick Google search confirms), but that not everything done through that studio will be part of the cinematic universe.
Tl;dr, it seems there's nothing to worry about weird D&D crossover movies. Nothing points to D&D being one of the 5 properties being included in the Hasboro universe.
My research said that Transformers, M.A.S.K, Rom, and Visionaries were older ideas for the universe, but were scrapped.
Back when the original D&D movie came out, studios did not know how to take nerdy properties seriously. They weren't in vogue yet, and nobody had wrapped their heads around making anything "fantasy" that was also not extremely campy (a la Willow or Xena) because people basically thought camp was an immutable part of the genre (and basically went on thinking that until Game of Thrones).
Thanks to the prevalence of superhero movies (especially more "out-there" properties like Guardians of the Galaxy was considered when it first was announced) and resurgence of the Star Wars brand, and other huge sci-fi/fantasy franchises that have made nerd-dom chic and mainstream, modern studios might actually have the language with which to approach a project like a D&D movie, language that again-- didn't really exist in the past, to actually make it good.
I'm not claiming it's going to be good. I'm just more optimistic now about the possibility of a good D&D movie than I would have been in 2014.
*Edit* As for the cinematic universe part, I'd be surprised if Hasboro made any attempt to actually tie these movies together like the MCU. Outside of Marvel, cinematic universes have generally underperformed even within the superhero genre with the fizzling of the DCEU, and people are starting to realize it. Outside of the superhero genre they're failing completely with Universal's Dark Universe scrapped. You could argue Fast and the Furious has had some success, but I'd argue those non-core movies were more FF spin-offs rather than truly separate entries in a cinematic universe. So I'm assuming when they say "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", they mean "hasboro is making movies and using a popular buzz-word to get people interested." My guess is if it's anything other than several disconnected titles, it'll be more of a cinematic multiverse with very little overlap.
Like, from a studio perspective, who would a GI Joe/D&D crossover movie be for? GI Joe is typically marketed to young kids to sell toys, and the average D&D player is probably in their 30's (taking into account veteran players in their 50's and new 5e players in their teens and 20's). There's not a lot of overlap there to make me think it'd be worth it to put both things in the same movie, especially having to bridge two very separate genes to do so. So I don't think we should have to worry about a micronauts/GI Joe/D&D crossover any time soon. My little pony though...*shudders*... that could happen...
Well, Marvel's universe has begun it's decline. Far From Home did not breathe any new life in, rather it just continued a life that should be dead now. DC's back on it's feet and has plans for more crossovers in the future, and the Monsterverse with Godzilla's doing good. Plus, I've read some articles that suggest that The Invisible Man is another attempt at a Dark Universe. As for audience, both GI Joe and Transformers have made PG-13 level, animated and live action alike. As for My Little Pony, the Brony fandom has likely changed the franchise forever. Believe me, I was just as surprised to learn they were in the group as well. But you are right about it not being anytime soon. Covid has postponed it... for now.
Back when the original D&D movie came out, studios did not know how to take nerdy properties seriously. They weren't in vogue yet, and nobody had wrapped their heads around making anything "fantasy" that was also not extremely campy (a la Willow or Xena) because people basically thought camp was an immutable part of the genre (and basically went on thinking that until Game of Thrones).
Thanks to the prevalence of superhero movies (especially more "out-there" properties like Guardians of the Galaxy was considered when it first was announced) and resurgence of the Star Wars brand, and other huge sci-fi/fantasy franchises that have made nerd-dom chic and mainstream, modern studios might actually have the language with which to approach a project like a D&D movie, language that again-- didn't really exist in the past, to actually make it good.
I'm not claiming it's going to be good. I'm just more optimistic now about the possibility of a good D&D movie than I would have been in 2014.
*Edit* As for the cinematic universe part, I'd be surprised if Hasboro made any attempt to actually tie these movies together like the MCU. Outside of Marvel, cinematic universes have generally underperformed even within the superhero genre with the fizzling of the DCEU, and people are starting to realize it. Outside of the superhero genre they're failing completely with Universal's Dark Universe scrapped. You could argue Fast and the Furious has had some success, but I'd argue those non-core movies were more FF spin-offs rather than truly separate entries in a cinematic universe. So I'm assuming when they say "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", they mean "hasboro is making movies and using a popular buzz-word to get people interested." My guess is if it's anything other than several disconnected titles, it'll be more of a cinematic multiverse with very little overlap.
Like, from a studio perspective, who would a GI Joe/D&D crossover movie be for? GI Joe is typically marketed to young kids to sell toys, and the average D&D player is probably in their 30's (taking into account veteran players in their 50's and new 5e players in their teens and 20's). There's not a lot of overlap there to make me think it'd be worth it to put both things in the same movie, especially having to bridge two very separate genes to do so. So I don't think we should have to worry about a micronauts/GI Joe/D&D crossover any time soon. My little pony though...*shudders*... that could happen...
Well, Marvel's universe has begun it's decline. Far From Home did not breathe any new life in, rather it just continued a life that should be dead now. DC's back on it's feet and has plans for more crossovers in the future, and the Monsterverse with Godzilla's doing good. Plus, I've read some articles that suggest that The Invisible Man is another attempt at a Dark Universe. As for audience, both GI Joe and Transformers have made PG-13 level, animated and live action alike. As for My Little Pony, the Brony fandom has likely changed the franchise forever. Believe me, I was just as surprised to learn they were in the group as well. But you are right about it not being anytime soon. Covid has postponed it... for now.
I still haven't seen anything pointing to D&D being "in the group", which is more my original point. Yes, Hasboro is still their parent company and it's being made by their studio, but the Cinematic universe is all originally toy properties, which doesn't match D&D's niche as a tabletop game, where the most toy thing is maybe the minis. Also, the d&d movie was announced in 2017, two years after their initial announcement of the cinematic universe with the toy properties which even if some of them were scrapped, they'd still have had ample time to announce the d&d movie's inclusion. I see the fact that the movie is one year away from its original release (two from postponed release) and they haven't tied the two projects together at all as more telling that they're most likely not related beyond the obvious.
There's definitely an observable connection between properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers and those other ones that D&D doesn't fit alongside, and I don't see them trying to force. (Also i think because of the huge Brony following, that's likely going to remain separate from the cinematic universe and continue to be a solo title where it has a much stronger following, as there's no indication that it's planned to be part of it either).
Basically I'm seeing a clear divide between movies made by Allspark and movies made by Allspark that are in the potential cinematic universe. With the D&D movie so far along, the studio would have said *something* about it if they wanted to build the hype for a cinematic universe.
Back when the original D&D movie came out, studios did not know how to take nerdy properties seriously. They weren't in vogue yet, and nobody had wrapped their heads around making anything "fantasy" that was also not extremely campy (a la Willow or Xena) because people basically thought camp was an immutable part of the genre (and basically went on thinking that until Game of Thrones).
Thanks to the prevalence of superhero movies (especially more "out-there" properties like Guardians of the Galaxy was considered when it first was announced) and resurgence of the Star Wars brand, and other huge sci-fi/fantasy franchises that have made nerd-dom chic and mainstream, modern studios might actually have the language with which to approach a project like a D&D movie, language that again-- didn't really exist in the past, to actually make it good.
I'm not claiming it's going to be good. I'm just more optimistic now about the possibility of a good D&D movie than I would have been in 2014.
*Edit* As for the cinematic universe part, I'd be surprised if Hasboro made any attempt to actually tie these movies together like the MCU. Outside of Marvel, cinematic universes have generally underperformed even within the superhero genre with the fizzling of the DCEU, and people are starting to realize it. Outside of the superhero genre they're failing completely with Universal's Dark Universe scrapped. You could argue Fast and the Furious has had some success, but I'd argue those non-core movies were more FF spin-offs rather than truly separate entries in a cinematic universe. So I'm assuming when they say "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", they mean "hasboro is making movies and using a popular buzz-word to get people interested." My guess is if it's anything other than several disconnected titles, it'll be more of a cinematic multiverse with very little overlap.
Like, from a studio perspective, who would a GI Joe/D&D crossover movie be for? GI Joe is typically marketed to young kids to sell toys, and the average D&D player is probably in their 30's (taking into account veteran players in their 50's and new 5e players in their teens and 20's). There's not a lot of overlap there to make me think it'd be worth it to put both things in the same movie, especially having to bridge two very separate genes to do so. So I don't think we should have to worry about a micronauts/GI Joe/D&D crossover any time soon. My little pony though...*shudders*... that could happen...
Well, Marvel's universe has begun it's decline. Far From Home did not breathe any new life in, rather it just continued a life that should be dead now. DC's back on it's feet and has plans for more crossovers in the future, and the Monsterverse with Godzilla's doing good. Plus, I've read some articles that suggest that The Invisible Man is another attempt at a Dark Universe. As for audience, both GI Joe and Transformers have made PG-13 level, animated and live action alike. As for My Little Pony, the Brony fandom has likely changed the franchise forever. Believe me, I was just as surprised to learn they were in the group as well. But you are right about it not being anytime soon. Covid has postponed it... for now.
I still haven't seen anything pointing to D&D being "in the group", which is more my original point. Yes, Hasboro is still their parent company and it's being made by their studio, but the Cinematic universe is all originally toy properties, which doesn't match D&D's niche as a tabletop game, where the most toy thing is maybe the minis. Also, the d&d movie was announced in 2017, two years after their initial announcement of the cinematic universe with the toy properties which even if some of them were scrapped, they'd still have had ample time to announce the d&d movie's inclusion. I see the fact that the movie is one year away from its original release (two from postponed release) and they haven't tied the two projects together at all as more telling that they're most likely not related beyond the obvious.
There's definitely an observable connection between properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers and those other ones that D&D doesn't fit alongside, and I don't see them trying to force. (Also i think because of the huge Brony following, that's likely going to remain separate from the cinematic universe and continue to be a solo title where it has a much stronger following, as there's no indication that it's planned to be part of it either).
Basically I'm seeing a clear divide between movies made by Allspark and movies made by Allspark that are in the potential cinematic universe. With the D&D movie so far along, the studio would have said *something* about it if they wanted to build the hype for a cinematic universe.
Yeah I saw that article too last time i was looking around. I'm not familiar with the source, but it seems mostly speculative. The article is from back in 2017 when those three movies were announced all at the same time, but the article doesn't have any hard news on them aside from the announcement.
We also don't know that ROM and M.A.S.K have been scrapped just because they don't appear on the release schedule. They could be in the many various stages of pre-pre-production and all that. We don't have enough information to say they're for sure not happening. Just like the cinematic universe as a whole, it's kind of up in the air whether or not they actually follow through or not, and all the info we have aside from the initial announcement is speculative.
I don't think they'll ever really make a good D&D movie. It's sort of the same reason they haven't actually made a good video game movie. What makes for a good D&D story doesn't necessarily make for a great film. I also just don't think there's enough cohesion between the stories people would want to see. Forgotten Realms would make for a pretty bland movie setting because it wouldn't really be much different than Lord of the Rings. There's also the length factor that's a problem in any high-fantasy setting. Anything that relies on a lot of magic and lore inevitably succumbs to bad storytelling tropes where there's too much voiceover and explanation just shoe-horned into the movie. Lord of the Rings works fine because you don't really need to understand anything beyond: Gandalf good wizard, One Ring evil magic thing. Long form stories that rely on a system of magic work much better as television.
The issue I always have with "they should make a movie about ...." is the idea that movies are the Prime Media, the 'best' form of entertainment. There's plenty of examples of great things that had a film version that wasn't necessarily *better*. Watchmen was a really solid movie and almost as good as the comic book. I know some people grumble about the Lord of the Rings films, but I think they were as good as they could be without being slavishly devoted to the books. The stuff they cut out made a LOT of sense to remove: the unnecessary wanderings of the hobbits at the beginning and all the singing.
I'd love to see an amazing D&D movie happen some day, but I really doubt they'll pull it off.
A series on Netflix or similar service would be the best way to adapt any existing material. I think a movie would work, but it would have to be new material specifically written as a screen play.
A series on Netflix or similar service would be the best way to adapt any existing material. I think a movie would work, but it would have to be new material specifically written as a screen play.
I agree. A TV show is the best way to have a D&D campaign in pop culture. A movie would be like a One-Shot, a likely one time thing with unique and powerful characters.
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A series on Netflix or similar service would be the best way to adapt any existing material. I think a movie would work, but it would have to be new material specifically written as a screen play.
I agree. A TV show is the best way to have a D&D campaign in pop culture. A movie would be like a One-Shot, a likely one time thing with unique and powerful characters.
You'd need a really great writer to pull off introducing a whole bunch of characters, a somewhat unfamiliar world and an important plot in the span of a film. Based on the current state of the scifi/fantasy film world I don't think there's many who could do a good job. Bigger stories like this need to either be planned as a film franchise (which in this case will fail to make enough money for a sequel) or done as a series. Franchises like Harry Potter, Marvel and DC are able to produce as much content as they do/have because a lot of people come into it familiar enough with the characters and background that you don't need a ton of time explaining the crucial politics and personalities involved. I've watched a handful of the D&D movies that have been made and they're all pretty unremarkable because there's not enough time to make a genuinely good film of this type in 90 minutes.
A prime example is the Last Witchhunter movie, which is more or less a D&D meets Urban Fantasy film. There's just not enough time to make characters you care about, a believable conflict and cool action. In the end you get movies that usually have a thin plot and boring single dimension characters glossed over by a ton of special effects and cool designs that make you wish they had more time to explore things. The past 10-15 years is littered with the economic corpses of these high budget films: John Carter, Jupiter Rising, pretty much every single video game adaptation ever made, Eragon, The Golden Compass (and the success of the HBO series further proves my point here), all of the Alien vs Predator films. I could list more but a) I don't feel like combing through google searches right now and b) I think that's enough examples to illustrate my point.
I think in all honesty the ONLY way you could see a truly enjoyable D&D movie is if someone sat down and wrote a farsical parody take on the fantasy genre. There you'd have the benefit of not needing a ton of characterization because you're not falling back on tropes because it's easy, (I mean that is helpful) but you're using them as a plot device to both drive the plot and have moments where you get laughs by playing against type. This would be in the spirit of Order of the Stick, but for obvious reasons for actual commercial success it'd need to deviate a bit away from mechanically-based D&D jokes.
I don't think they'll ever really make a good D&D movie. It's sort of the same reason they haven't actually made a good video game movie. What makes for a good D&D story doesn't necessarily make for a great film. I also just don't think there's enough cohesion between the stories people would want to see. Forgotten Realms would make for a pretty bland movie setting because it wouldn't really be much different than Lord of the Rings. There's also the length factor that's a problem in any high-fantasy setting. Anything that relies on a lot of magic and lore inevitably succumbs to bad storytelling tropes where there's too much voiceover and explanation just shoe-horned into the movie. Lord of the Rings works fine because you don't really need to understand anything beyond: Gandalf good wizard, One Ring evil magic thing. Long form stories that rely on a system of magic work much better as television.
The issue I always have with "they should make a movie about ...." is the idea that movies are the Prime Media, the 'best' form of entertainment. There's plenty of examples of great things that had a film version that wasn't necessarily *better*. Watchmen was a really solid movie and almost as good as the comic book. I know some people grumble about the Lord of the Rings films, but I think they were as good as they could be without being slavishly devoted to the books. The stuff they cut out made a LOT of sense to remove: the unnecessary wanderings of the hobbits at the beginning and all the singing.
I'd love to see an amazing D&D movie happen some day, but I really doubt they'll pull it off.
As wonderfully campy as the first Dungeons and Dragons movie was, it wasn't exactly the best first movie outing for the series. But that hasn't stopped Hollywood from trying, and another movie is schedualed for theater release, though the virus has put it on hold. But this future movie is going to be more than just a D&D movie. Wizards of the Coast is working with it's parent company, Hasbro to add Dungeons and Dragons to quite possibly the strangest film series to ever grace mankind. A series so ridiculous, so ambitious, so ludicrous, it just might work.
Dungeons and Dragons is joining a Cinematic Universe for Hasbro's properties. So far, 4 movies have been announced, and Dungeons and Dragons is one of them. The other three are Micronaunts, G.I. Joe, and (I'm not kidding), My Little Pony. Knowing Wizards of the Coast, the Forgotten Realms will likely be the setting of the D&D part of the franchise. But how would you adapt of The Forgotten Realms into a universe that's also inhabited by microscopic sci-fi heroes, super counter-terrorists, and cartoon ponies? Should any established Forgotten Realms heroes be our characters, or should new one be built from scratch? And how are they going to react and interact when their thrown into the same room with characters from the other three properties?
Do you think this could work? Me personally, I've never heard of a more ambitious project. These 4 properties may belong to the same people, but their so utterly different in setting, lore, tone, audience range, and the sliding scale of cynicism vs optimism. This is such a strange and bizarre concept that I think it could go either way. It's bizarre concept could just as easily carry it to greatness as it could bury it in a nameless grave. What do you think? What would you do if you were the writers for the D&D parts of the universe?
This sounds like failure
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Well, everything has been delayed due to Covid. Perhaps this will give writers and editors a chance to thoroughly examine the whole thing.
Back when the original D&D movie came out, studios did not know how to take nerdy properties seriously. They weren't in vogue yet, and nobody had wrapped their heads around making anything "fantasy" that was also not extremely campy (a la Willow or Xena) because people basically thought camp was an immutable part of the genre (and basically went on thinking that until Game of Thrones).
Thanks to the prevalence of superhero movies (especially more "out-there" properties like Guardians of the Galaxy was considered when it first was announced) and resurgence of the Star Wars brand, and other huge sci-fi/fantasy franchises that have made nerd-dom chic and mainstream, modern studios might actually have the language with which to approach a project like a D&D movie, language that again-- didn't really exist in the past, to actually make it good.
I'm not claiming it's going to be good. I'm just more optimistic now about the possibility of a good D&D movie than I would have been in 2014.
*Edit* As for the cinematic universe part, I'd be surprised if Hasboro made any attempt to actually tie these movies together like the MCU. Outside of Marvel, cinematic universes have generally underperformed even within the superhero genre with the fizzling of the DCEU, and people are starting to realize it. Outside of the superhero genre they're failing completely with Universal's Dark Universe scrapped. You could argue Fast and the Furious has had some success, but I'd argue those non-core movies were more FF spin-offs rather than truly separate entries in a cinematic universe. So I'm assuming when they say "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", they mean "hasboro is making movies and using a popular buzz-word to get people interested." My guess is if it's anything other than several disconnected titles, it'll be more of a cinematic multiverse with very little overlap.
Like, from a studio perspective, who would a GI Joe/D&D crossover movie be for? GI Joe is typically marketed to young kids to sell toys, and the average D&D player is probably in their 30's (taking into account veteran players in their 50's and new 5e players in their teens and 20's). There's not a lot of overlap there to make me think it'd be worth it to put both things in the same movie, especially having to bridge two very separate genes to do so. So I don't think we should have to worry about a micronauts/GI Joe/D&D crossover any time soon. My little pony though...*shudders*... that could happen...
A good D&D movie is possible, but not within a Hasbro Cinematic Universe
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Yeah I didn't see that part in the OP, addressed it in an edit in my comment
Based on a little more research, there isn't a lot out on the Hasboro cinematic universe. The latest article I could find was this one from August (https://www.cbr.com/whatever-happened-to-the-hasbro-cinematic-universe/), and the wikipedia entry for Hasboro's movie universe (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbro_Universe#Five-property_cinematic_universe) lists the five properties in the universe as Transformers, M.A.S.K, Micronauts, Rom, and Visionaries, supporting what the CBR article says.
Neither article mentions D&D as being associated with the Hasboro cinematic universe (aside from having its release date announced alongside GI Joe and Micronauts, but for a studio that's doing so little lately, it makes sense that they announce big titles at once, connected or no), so what is more likely is just that the D&D movie(s?) will be made through Hasboro's Allspark Pictures studio (which a quick Google search confirms), but that not everything done through that studio will be part of the cinematic universe.
Tl;dr, it seems there's nothing to worry about weird D&D crossover movies. Nothing points to D&D being one of the 5 properties being included in the Hasboro universe.
As a low budget animated web series, a Hasbro Cinematic Universe would be ridiculously fun, and I'd love to see that happen!
Seriously, however, for the big budget film, to avoid it just being yet-another-generic-fantasy-but-with-D&D-names, but actually uniquely feeling like D&D itself, I think they would be wise to look more at successful superhero movies than other fantasy movies.
My research said that Transformers, M.A.S.K, Rom, and Visionaries were older ideas for the universe, but were scrapped.
Well, Marvel's universe has begun it's decline. Far From Home did not breathe any new life in, rather it just continued a life that should be dead now. DC's back on it's feet and has plans for more crossovers in the future, and the Monsterverse with Godzilla's doing good. Plus, I've read some articles that suggest that The Invisible Man is another attempt at a Dark Universe. As for audience, both GI Joe and Transformers have made PG-13 level, animated and live action alike. As for My Little Pony, the Brony fandom has likely changed the franchise forever. Believe me, I was just as surprised to learn they were in the group as well. But you are right about it not being anytime soon. Covid has postponed it... for now.
I still haven't seen anything pointing to D&D being "in the group", which is more my original point. Yes, Hasboro is still their parent company and it's being made by their studio, but the Cinematic universe is all originally toy properties, which doesn't match D&D's niche as a tabletop game, where the most toy thing is maybe the minis. Also, the d&d movie was announced in 2017, two years after their initial announcement of the cinematic universe with the toy properties which even if some of them were scrapped, they'd still have had ample time to announce the d&d movie's inclusion. I see the fact that the movie is one year away from its original release (two from postponed release) and they haven't tied the two projects together at all as more telling that they're most likely not related beyond the obvious.
There's definitely an observable connection between properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers and those other ones that D&D doesn't fit alongside, and I don't see them trying to force. (Also i think because of the huge Brony following, that's likely going to remain separate from the cinematic universe and continue to be a solo title where it has a much stronger following, as there's no indication that it's planned to be part of it either).
Basically I'm seeing a clear divide between movies made by Allspark and movies made by Allspark that are in the potential cinematic universe. With the D&D movie so far along, the studio would have said *something* about it if they wanted to build the hype for a cinematic universe.
https://thecomeback.com/films/dungeons-dragons-gi-joe-hasbro-cinematic-universe.html I can see that if this were to be made, it would be the strangest hodgepodge of genre's in all of movie history. I also found info that M.A.S.K and ROM were both omitted.
Yeah I saw that article too last time i was looking around. I'm not familiar with the source, but it seems mostly speculative. The article is from back in 2017 when those three movies were announced all at the same time, but the article doesn't have any hard news on them aside from the announcement.
We also don't know that ROM and M.A.S.K have been scrapped just because they don't appear on the release schedule. They could be in the many various stages of pre-pre-production and all that. We don't have enough information to say they're for sure not happening. Just like the cinematic universe as a whole, it's kind of up in the air whether or not they actually follow through or not, and all the info we have aside from the initial announcement is speculative.
I don't think they'll ever really make a good D&D movie. It's sort of the same reason they haven't actually made a good video game movie. What makes for a good D&D story doesn't necessarily make for a great film. I also just don't think there's enough cohesion between the stories people would want to see. Forgotten Realms would make for a pretty bland movie setting because it wouldn't really be much different than Lord of the Rings. There's also the length factor that's a problem in any high-fantasy setting. Anything that relies on a lot of magic and lore inevitably succumbs to bad storytelling tropes where there's too much voiceover and explanation just shoe-horned into the movie. Lord of the Rings works fine because you don't really need to understand anything beyond: Gandalf good wizard, One Ring evil magic thing. Long form stories that rely on a system of magic work much better as television.
The issue I always have with "they should make a movie about ...." is the idea that movies are the Prime Media, the 'best' form of entertainment. There's plenty of examples of great things that had a film version that wasn't necessarily *better*. Watchmen was a really solid movie and almost as good as the comic book. I know some people grumble about the Lord of the Rings films, but I think they were as good as they could be without being slavishly devoted to the books. The stuff they cut out made a LOT of sense to remove: the unnecessary wanderings of the hobbits at the beginning and all the singing.
I'd love to see an amazing D&D movie happen some day, but I really doubt they'll pull it off.
A series on Netflix or similar service would be the best way to adapt any existing material. I think a movie would work, but it would have to be new material specifically written as a screen play.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I agree. A TV show is the best way to have a D&D campaign in pop culture. A movie would be like a One-Shot, a likely one time thing with unique and powerful characters.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
You'd need a really great writer to pull off introducing a whole bunch of characters, a somewhat unfamiliar world and an important plot in the span of a film. Based on the current state of the scifi/fantasy film world I don't think there's many who could do a good job. Bigger stories like this need to either be planned as a film franchise (which in this case will fail to make enough money for a sequel) or done as a series. Franchises like Harry Potter, Marvel and DC are able to produce as much content as they do/have because a lot of people come into it familiar enough with the characters and background that you don't need a ton of time explaining the crucial politics and personalities involved. I've watched a handful of the D&D movies that have been made and they're all pretty unremarkable because there's not enough time to make a genuinely good film of this type in 90 minutes.
A prime example is the Last Witchhunter movie, which is more or less a D&D meets Urban Fantasy film. There's just not enough time to make characters you care about, a believable conflict and cool action. In the end you get movies that usually have a thin plot and boring single dimension characters glossed over by a ton of special effects and cool designs that make you wish they had more time to explore things. The past 10-15 years is littered with the economic corpses of these high budget films: John Carter, Jupiter Rising, pretty much every single video game adaptation ever made, Eragon, The Golden Compass (and the success of the HBO series further proves my point here), all of the Alien vs Predator films. I could list more but a) I don't feel like combing through google searches right now and b) I think that's enough examples to illustrate my point.
I think in all honesty the ONLY way you could see a truly enjoyable D&D movie is if someone sat down and wrote a farsical parody take on the fantasy genre. There you'd have the benefit of not needing a ton of characterization because you're not falling back on tropes because it's easy, (I mean that is helpful) but you're using them as a plot device to both drive the plot and have moments where you get laughs by playing against type. This would be in the spirit of Order of the Stick, but for obvious reasons for actual commercial success it'd need to deviate a bit away from mechanically-based D&D jokes.
Some are ambitious enough to try though.
Oh no this is going to be even worse than ten TPKs.
I don't what that is.