DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Movie Directors Discuss The Tone of the Film & The Role Wizards of the Coast Play in Its Development

Filmmakers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have been hard at work developing their Dungeons & Dragons movie since they’ve been in lockdown during the pandemic. They were supposed to go to the United Kingdom to scout locations for the film back in March, but that didn’t happen.

During a recent interview with THR, they offered an update on the project saying that they have turned in a second draft of the script and are doing the prep work. They also discuss the tone of the film and they talk about the role that Wizards of the Coast is playing in the development of the project. Goldstein says:

“We had just commenced on our second draft of Dungeons & Dragons. We were able to go off and devote our time to that. On the other hand, we were supposed to be flying to the U.K. to scout in March.”

Daley added that the script has been turned in and they are now storyboarding the film:

“Once we got our scout dates, I think the next day they had basically shut down all travel to and from Europe. It obviously put everything in that sense on hold. That said, the studio and eOne and everyone over there remain cautiously optimistic about getting the ball rolling again as soon as possible, obviously in the safest possible way. We have turned in our second draft of the movie and are doing prep with storyboarding and visualizing sequences. That's stuff we can do from our homes as well.”

When talking about the tone of the film and if it feels like a natural evolution for them in terms of the humor they’ve included in projects like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Game Night, Goldstein said:

“We want it to be fun. It's not an out and out comedy, but it is an action-fantasy movie with a lot of comedic elements and characters we hope people will really get into and enjoy watching their adventures.”

Daley went on to talk about finding a format for the film and how they never went into the project wanting to spoof D&D:

“D&D is such a unique look at the fantasy genre where it is contemporary in terms of the people playing it and the way they speak to each other. So we never wanted to spoof the genre of fantasy or take the piss out of it. But we did want to find another way into it that we hadn't necessarily seen before. Just the format of Dungeons & Dragons is so interesting and fun and all about critical thinking and thinking on your feet and figuring out ways to make things work after they fall flat. There's a lot of the spirit of that that we're trying to inject into the movie itself.”

As for the involvement of Wizards of the Coast, Goldstein explained:

“We haven't been accosted by players yet, but we are working with the Wizards of the Coast, the brand holders of D&D. They are the experts. We have people there that we work with and it's pretty helpful, because as much as we know about D&D, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the 45 years of lore that's out there, so these guys are such a resource. If we need a particular spell that a [high]-level wizard could do, they could give us a list. It's a lot of fun.”

Daley also says that he plays a weekly game of Dungeons & Dragons because it’s “a fun way to keep your foot in that world as you are writing a movie about it.”

As of right now, no casting has been done for the film, but it will happen. When it does, they’ll probably be doing it through video calls. Daley explains the downside to that, saying:

“Unfortunately. That is one of the downsides of all of this. So much of casting is feeling the electricity in the room, especially when you are doing a chemistry read between people. But we've been told by our casting department at Paramount that they've already done chemistry reads like this, where people would be Skyping in from Australia and said that it works really well, as long as the connection is [good]. It's brand new territory to figure out, and hopefully it will garner the same results that a normal casting session would.”

We don’t know for sure what the story of the film will tell, but it was previously reported that it might focus on “a group of adventurers looking for the Eye of Vecna, a powerful artifact that dates back to the earliest days of the game. Vecna is a powerful lich turned god whose hand and eye (remnants from when Vecna was a mortal) grant unspeakable power. Both the Hand and Eye of Vecna come with a terrible cost - in order to use either artifact, the user must remove their existing eye or hand and then replace it with the artifact.”

This Dungeons & Dragons film has the potential to be an epic fantasy film that’s as glorious as The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That’s the scale that it should be. I hope that Goldstein and Daley can pull it off!