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

With Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves in theaters and Essential Function’s animated collection 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 a much bigger D&D display franchise? Is Honor Amongst Thieves headed for a sequel, a film collection, 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 method for Dungeons & Dragons’ wealthy fantasy worlds. However Daley and Goldstein aren’t really occupied with subsequent steps fairly but.

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

Picture: Paramount Photos

“It was by no means our intention once we got here on board this movie to make a franchise,” Daley says. “I feel that will cloud our capacity 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 before everything for us was getting this proper.”

That’s a refreshing perspective in a world the place studios preserve forgetting to start out small and construct a fandom organically, as a substitute of attempting to kickstart a 10-year mega-blockbuster plan with each new film. That stated, with Honor Amongst Thieves out, in fact the administrators are occupied with 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 in all probability follow 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 time introducing [the party],” he says. “The viewers is aware of them, and you may leap into the plot extra shortly. And clearly, we’ve got nice affection for each the actors and these roles that they play. However we’d need to introduce some new figures alongside the way in which, and positively lots of new monsters.”

“And new areas,” Daley provides.

“Yeah, you understand, we did the Forgotten Realms for this one, partly as a result of it’s sort 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 resolve if this factor is successful, we’d completely like to proceed to inform tales on this world,” Daley says. “We expect it’s completely ripe with potential.”

What would Honor Amongst Thieves 2 appear to be?

Photograph: Paramount Photos

A part of that potential, Daley says, is a core component of Dungeons & Dragons that doesn’t come up of their film: “I feel if we had been fortunate sufficient to do one other one in every of these, we’d need to see our characters degree 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 in all probability add spells to his repertoire. “That might be sort 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 “a listing of the 30 largest fan-favorite creatures” to provide them concepts. “After which we had the liberty to pick what we must always function.”

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 one in every of fandom’s largest questions on Dungeons & Dragons display 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 normal consensus was to not go there but. That stated, he’s undoubtedly a well-liked character on the earth, and one who might be thrilling to discover.”

“How a couple of film the place Drizzt meets the ’80s characters?” Goldstein asks, referring to the Saturday morning cartoon characters from the Eighties, who function in a maze sequence in one in every 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 seemingly than a stop-motion D&D film. However for Daley, this sort of imaginative toying with the chances 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 could be actually enjoyable both to have them be a part of the group we’ve established, or do some form of an offshoot of our movie, to get into their backstories.”