Ryan Reynolds’ DRAGON'S LAIR Finds Its Director with THE MUPPET's James Bobin
It’s been a long crawl through the dungeon, but Dragon’s Lair, the long-gestating adaptation of the 1980s arcade classic, is finally gaining momentum, and it just found its director.
James Bobin, best known for The Muppets and Muppets Most Wanted, has signed on to helm the Netflix film, with Ryan Reynolds still locked in as the bumbling but brave knight, Dirk the Daring.
The project has been circling development since it was first announced five years ago, but Bobin's involvement signals a renewed push forward. His knack for zippy pacing, heightened comedy, and cartoonish flair makes him a surprisingly ideal match for a property like Dragon’s Lair.
If you grew up feeding quarters into arcade cabinets, you probably remember Dragon’s Lair as a cool animated, and brutally unforgiving, games of its era. Released in 1983, the Don Bluth-designed game cast players as Dirk, a well-meaning but accident-prone hero navigating a trap-laden castle to save Princess Daphne.
If you mess up a move, you'd be met with one of many elaborate (and often hilarious) death animations, from being zapped into bones to getting flattened like a pancake.
Reynolds has been attached to play Dirk since the film was announced, but updates on the project have been sporadic. According to producer Roy Lee, the film’s concept has evolved significantly since its early days, originally envisioned as an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure-style story.
“The status has changed a lot,” Lee explained during a San Diego Comic-Con panel last year. “Originally, it was gonna be one of the movies that was gonna be like a choose-your-own-adventure. Like that Black Mirror episode where you could decide the fate of the characters, and that's the way we had originally developed it.
“We had a 400-page script because you could go different directions and go different ways, and Ryan Reynolds was gonna play Dirk the Daring, but they pulled the plug on that format. Now we're reconfiguring it as a straight, linear movie.”
So, while the choose-your-own-path concept is off the table, the movie is now focused on delivering a tight, character-driven adventure. f the film leans into the original game’s blend of slapstick danger, epic fantasy, and sincere goofiness, we could be in for something really fun.