It was exciting when we found out that Warner Brothers picked up the film rights to ‘Dungeons & Dragons‘ in 2013 and now producer Roy Lee (‘The LEGO Movie’,’The Ring‘) is sharing his vision as to the tone of the film as well as how it may expand into a shared universe over time.

After the abysmal 2000 release of the original film, things seemed bleak but with a new studio wanting to develop an epic fantasy series, we might be onto something good. With Peter Jackson having finalized his adventures into The Shire, the only big budget fantasy film on the horizon has been ‘Warcraft‘ and now the tabletop game that hooked so many over the years might have a chance to shine as well.

According to Lee:

“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.”

To clarify the Raiders comment he does mean the Indiana Jones ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ film. So, it sounds like we’ll be getting something that is a mixture of humor, seriousness, and adventure that is building into something even great. Not only that, but they want to create this universe in a way that is true to the source material:

“Everyone who’s involved with it now, especially the writer of the first draft is a fan from the very beginning starting with Chainmail, which turned into Dungeons & Dragons, so you’ll see things that are very faithful to the source material as well as new elements are being incorporated with help from Wizards of the Coast, who are giving a lot of input on the script.”

Name dropping Warner Brothers’ other shared universes is how Lee also hints that his plans are far greater than just a single stand alone film:

“I think it will really be moving forward quickly, and I don’t anticipate it not getting greenlit this year, mostly because Warner Bros. has DC now, and LEGO, and the Harry Potter universe that’s being cultivated as their franchises. I believe they see Dungeons & Dragons as something that could be cultivated as a multi-universe movie where there will be spinoffs from the first movie being in Forgotten Realms and subsequent movies being in different worlds.”

He’d better hope that the DC Cinematic Universe has strong ratings and box office appeal because without it, the idea might fall flat rather quickly. Still, even if we only get one well done fantasy movie I don’t think that we’ll see any complaints from fans though this is clearly a world that could be greatly expanded upon.

Are you looking forward to hearing more about ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ as it comes along? Is the tone fitting for this kind of film and would you like to see this become a franchise? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Screen Rant