Right here’s what the Dungeons & Dragons film administrators would do in a sequel

With Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves in theaters and Important Position’s animated sequence The Legend of Vox Machina contemporary off its second season, it appears like D&D onscreen is having a very mainstream second. Is that this simply the beginning of an even bigger D&D display screen franchise? Is Honor Amongst Thieves headed for a sequel, a film sequence, or a bunch of spinoffs? Polygon requested writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein what type they’d prefer to see future D&D tales take.

“I feel stop-motion,” Daley says, with out hesitation. “Rankin/Bass fashion, a complete throwback.”

Daley means it as a joke. However it isn’t the worst thought, given stop-motion animation’s current micro-boom: A brand new Netflix film from Nightmare Earlier than Christmas director Henry Selick and Guillermo del Toro’s extraordinarily darkish, Oscar-nominated tackle Pinocchio each arrived late final yr, and 2023 will see a brand new Hen Run sequel and two new Wes Anderson movies that may reportedly embody stop-motion. Any type of animation could be a superb strategy for Dungeons & Dragons’ wealthy fantasy worlds. However Daley and Goldstein aren’t really eager about subsequent steps fairly but.

Will Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves get a sequel?

Picture: Paramount Footage

“It was by no means our intention after we got here on board this movie to make a franchise,” Daley says. “I feel that will cloud our means to focus fully on the movie at hand. The cardinal mistake many studios make is to place the cart earlier than the horse, the place they begin crafting a cinematic universe earlier than they even make a superb single movie. So at the start for us was getting this proper.”

That’s a refreshing perspective in a world the place studios hold forgetting to begin small and construct a fandom organically, as a substitute of making an attempt to kickstart a 10-year mega-blockbuster plan with each new film. That mentioned, with Honor Amongst Thieves out, after all the administrators are eager about the place they’d prefer to see these characters go subsequent.

Goldstein says if they’d carte blanche to do something with the D&D world, they’d most likely keep on with the social gathering they set up in Honor Amongst Thieves: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, and Sophia Lillis as an adventuring crew who forge some private connections over the course of the story.

“The advantage of a sequel is, you don’t must spend a lot display screen time introducing [the party],” he says. “The viewers is aware of them, and you’ll bounce into the plot extra shortly. And clearly, we have now nice affection for each the actors and these roles that they play. However we’d wish to introduce some new figures alongside the way in which, and definitely a whole lot of new monsters.”

“And new areas,” Daley provides.

“Yeah, , we did the Forgotten Realms for this one, partly as a result of it’s form of a recognizable medieval setting,” Goldstein says. “However there are such a lot of worlds inside D&D that we might discover.”

“Now that we’ve completed it, and we’re counting on the fates to determine if this factor is successful, we’d completely like to proceed to inform tales on this world,” Daley says. “We predict it’s completely ripe with potential.”

What would Honor Amongst Thieves 2 seem like?

Photograph: Paramount Footage

A part of that potential, Daley says, is a core ingredient of Dungeons & Dragons that doesn’t come up of their film: “I feel if we had been fortunate sufficient to do one other considered one of these, we’d wish to see our characters stage up.” In Honor Amongst Thieves, Pine’s bard character Edgin by no means makes use of magic (for causes the administrators defined to us for our bigger have a look at the film’s decisions), however Daley thinks in a sequel, he’d most likely add spells to his repertoire. “That may be form of thrilling to see,” he says.

Goldstein says that when the 2 males had been planning the film — which lists them as co-writers alongside collaborator Michael Gilio, with a narrative by Gilio and Chris McKay — they requested Wizards of the Coast for “an inventory of the 30 greatest fan-favorite creatures” to offer them concepts. “After which we had the liberty to pick out what we should always characteristic.”

That explains Honor Amongst Thieves’ use of an owlbear, a displacer beast, and a mimic, amongst different creatures from previous D&D lore. However it leaves them with loads to cowl in future tales.

When is Drizzt getting a D&D film?

Picture: Wizards of the Coast

After which there’s considered one of fandom’s greatest questions on Dungeons & Dragons display screen tales: When is fan-favorite character Drizzt Do’urden getting his personal film or TV present? May he flip up in an Honor Amongst Thieves sequel or spinoff?

“Drizzt did come up, really, as we had been determining what our first movie was going to be,” Daley says. “However the basic consensus was to not go there but. That mentioned, he’s undoubtedly a preferred character on the planet, and one who could possibly be thrilling to discover.”

“How a few film the place Drizzt meets the ’80s characters?” Goldstein asks, referring to the Saturday morning cartoon characters from the Eighties, who characteristic in a maze sequence in considered one of Honor Amongst Thieves’ geekiest references.

“And the ’80s characters are horribly maimed after their expertise within the maze?” Daley laughs.

That appears even much less doubtless than a stop-motion D&D film. However for Daley, this sort of imaginative toying with the probabilities of WOTC properties is a part of the enjoyable of a D&D story. “There are such a lot of characters on this world,” he says. “It might be actually enjoyable both to have them be a part of the group we’ve established, or do some type of an offshoot of our movie, to get into their backstories.”