You know, I wonder what grapple check you’d have to roll to avoid getting hooked… on a feeling.
Speaking to Collider at DICE 2016, producer Roy Lee offered a brief update on Warner Bros. newest attempt to bring the venerable tabletop RPG series Dungeons & Dragons to the big screen — some obvious things were confirmed, like the fact that it’s aiming to be an ensemble movie (after all, D&D is all about parties of heroes!), and that Warner Bros. see its potential to become a sprawling franchise for the company. But the most interesting quotable came from Lee discussing the movie’s planned tone:
This new Dungeons & Dragons will be a Guardians of the Galaxy-tone movie in a Tolkien-like universe. Because when you think of all the Hobbit movies and The Lord of the Rings, they have an earnestness to them, and to see something fun, a Raiders romp inside that world, I feel is something the audience has not seen before.
It sounds crazy at first — and honestly, kind of risky, just as Guardians was for the relatively serious world of the Marvel movies — but when you think about it, Lee’s right. We don’t have a lot of big screen fantasy as it is in the post-Lord of the Rings world, and what we do have coming up, like Warcraft, is taking itself very seriously. There’s definitely room for a light-hearted, slightly goofy fantasy adventure movie.
And not to mention, some of the best parts of playing D&D are the moments when hilarious and wild things happen to your party, accidentally or otherwise. Or when players come up with a creative, silly way to solve a serious problem. The setting totally lends itself to a movie about a band of misfits coming together on a quest for gold, glory and/or Kobold hides.
Maybe they shouldn’t try to borrow Guardians of the Galaxy‘s soundtrack though. That might be a bit too far.
[Collider]