Hey folks, Harry here... Well, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS has been cleared of all legal restraints, now it enters full development at Warner Brothers. The prior attempt at adaptation by New Line hit the year before Peter Jackson changed fantasy filmmaking forever with his first chapter of the LORD OF THE RINGS saga... but New Line's DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was hands down one of the worst films I've seen. That said, if you're drunk and with a group of friends... Everytime the black lipstick wearing Bruce Payne says anything... I kinda cry laughing. And "THROW ME THE ROD" is a hysterical line in this otherwise terrible film.
There is no reason on Earth that there should have been a suck ass Dungeons & Dragons movie - but then... 2000 was early in the CG revolution, and boy did this film show it! It failed miserably with critics, audiences and it was the chief reason that so many old school authorities on cinema had no clue that what Peter Jackson was doing was going to be a box office bonanza.
You have to get the right people to adapt this sort of material. People that get it. I know ol Massawyrm (Christopher Robert Cargill) would give his right testicle to write a great DUNGEONS & DRAGONS movie. Hell, he does it free all the time as a Dungeon Master locally when he isn't writing novels or scripts. But there's a lot of talented folks out there that could give this property exactly what it needs.
At the same time, I'd kill to see the old DUNGEONS & DRAGONS cartoon property also adapted! Those characters and that situation has continued to delight me since childhood! Here... Watch all of them now:
Wow, done already? Didn't that kickass? My favorite episode is that HALL OF BONES one, I was once talking about Saturday Morning Cartoons with Paul Dini riding back to LA from Comic Con with him, and I started talking about my fave DnD cartoon, recalling all the major plot points - and Dini is just smiling - and says, "Yeah, I wrote that one!" - and I had to clench to not shit myself, cuz HALL OF BONES is one of the very best Saturday Morning Cartoon experiences I ever had. I recorded it and never recorded over it! Still have that tape!
So let's see what Warners does now that they own it outright.
How would you like to see DUNGEONS & DRAGONS handled?
Keep it cool,
Harry
