There was good news for Warner Bros. today. It has finished its homework and can now play Dungeons & Dragons! Well, that’s sort of what happened. In reality, the studio has worked out a deal with rights holders Hasbro and producer Courtney Soloman’s Sweetpea Entertainment to partner on a new film based on the long-running game world.
And if ever there was a subject actually crying out for a new cinematic adaptation, it was Dungeons & Dragons, which suffered through Soloman’s less-than-magical effort back in 2000 with two straight-to-SyFy Channel sequels after that.
A few years ago, Warners decided to go ahead and try to conjure up its own take, working with Wrath Of The Titans/Red Riding Hood writer David Leslie Johnson’s script Chainmail – itself based on a more obscure game crafted by Dungeons designer Gary Gygax – and having him re-work it to focus on the ideas from the main title before it had locked down rights from Hasbro. That company instead chose to push ahead on a film deal with Universal, and Warners began talking to Solomon and Sweetpea about using their rights instead. Hasbro objected, claiming Sweetpea’s rights had reverted to it, and thus began the battle. Now, the studio and the toy giant have apparently made a deal that allows Warners to go ahead, though no one has heard what Universal thinks about the idea. If there’s an Indominus Rex stalking towards the Warner lot this week, we know what happened.
Still, Warners appears confident it can finally proceed. “We are so excited about bringing the world of Dungeons & Dragons to life on the big screen,” Greg Silverman, Warner Bros. president of creative development and worldwide production said in a statement. “This is far and away the most well-known brand in fantasy, which is the genre that drives the most passionate film followings. D&D has endless creative possibilities, giving our filmmakers immense opportunities to delight and thrill both fans and moviegoers new to the property.” Please just make this better than the one Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans probably wish they could scrub from their CVs.
from Empire News
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