It's a busy old time in the north of England for movie fans. With Mission Impossible 7 shooting last week, Indy 5 beginning filming over the weekend and now the first set photos of Dungeons & Dragons have arrived online giving fans a very small glimpse of the production in full swing - swinging of swords at that. The movie is currently shooting at Alnwick Castle in northeast England, and will be there for the next few days, while Harrison Ford and the Indy 5 bandwagon are just down the road, making it a great chance for those in the area to crack out their telescopic lenses and try to grab a little souvenir for themselves.

While the images don't show any of the main characters or give away major plot details, they were enough to give a little taster of what kind of feel the movie is going for. With banners adorning the ancient structure and another image showing a tattooed and armored bald man wearing black engaging in some swordplay, there is enough to start what will surely be a long road of hype until the movie arrives in theaters in 19 months' time. It sounds so very far away, doesn't it?

With the movie already confirmed to be set in the Forgotten Realms, the expectation based on the new images is that Alnwick Castle will become Neverwinter, a well-known Forgotten Realms city. Alnwick Castle is no stranger to blockbuster fantasies, having been used as a location in Transformers: The Last Knight and the first two Harry Potter films, as well as featuring prominently in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and TV series Downton Abbey. Here are some of the images that made their way onto the net.

Based on the ever-popular tabletop roleplaying game, and not as some would hope the 80s cartoon series, Dungeons & Dragons will be the second time the franchise has been realized as a live action movie. Over two decades ago in 2000, a cast boasting the likes of Thora Birch and Jeremy Irons starred in the first attempt to bring the franchise to the big screen, and it's fair to say that history doesn't treat it very well. The movie bombed on its release, and took around $12 million less at the box office than its reported $45 million budget. Despite that, two direct to DVD sequels followed in 2005 and 2012, but the less said about those the better.

This time around, we have a cast consisting of Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, and Hugh Grant. Details of the movie's plot have been as rare as dragon's teeth, so much of what is known is based on very scarce comments and suppositions. While this D&D is certainly set in the Forgotten Realms, whether it deals with the game itself - which sees players combining their efforts to tell a fantasy tale in one of the many setting available - or whether the script will be a story built around the 45 years of myth and legend that the game has developed as its lore remains to be seen. One thing for certain is that if this movie fails to hit the mark, then it will prove to be an even costlier mistake than its predecessor.

This new take on Dungeons & Dragons is scheduled to be released on 3rd March, 2023, so you may want to grab your dice and have a game or several while you wait.