Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is looking to buck the trend of previous attempts to bring the fantasy table top role playing game to the big screen. With an all-star cast and based firmly set in the fantasy world, Honor Among Thieves is expected to be the first movie in a universe of D&D content coming from Paramount Pictures, with a D&D series also in the works. When it comes to getting the movie right, co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have attempted to get an almost “Marvel style” mix of action and comedy that will resonate with both fans of the game and those unfamiliar with it.
While speaking to IGN, the pair discussed some of the ways they have attempted to develop the movie in a way that can be enjoyed by many, and that included a mixing of genres. One surprising source of inspiration even brings in the surreal humor of the Monty Python team. As Goldstein explained:
"Our favorite thing is mashing up genres and doing it in a way where you can be scared one moment (and) laughing the next. We never want to go too far where it becomes a spoof of fantasy films, but we also wanted to be able to pivot from something creepy and traditional fantasy to an absurd, almost Monty Python-type sequence."
While a mix of genres has worked well in the Marvel Universe, bringing a diverse range of storytelling styles to the franchise in a way that means every movie has its own tone, can it work in the heavily fan-guarded world of Dungeons & Dragons? The mix in styles has been said by Daley to encapsulate the way D&D lends its characters to have a “sense of humor,” but will serious fans see it that way?
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Is Looking To Surpass Expectations.
Although he track record of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise on screen is mostly best forgotten, with the 2000 movie being regarded as a flop and its straight to video sequels never being mentioned again, this time around it is a bold statement to say that the movie is going to surpass expectations. The achievement of that goal is essentially going to come down to exactly what expectations fans have going into Honor Among Thieves to give a sense of how big a mountain it has to climb. Daley recently explained:
"People will be surprised by what the movie is, because people come to a film like this with expectations of what a fantasy adventure movie is. And some of that is here, but there's also a lot that will surprise them."
Hopefully the movie has a big story to tell, as the movie’s runtime is an epic 137 minutes long. While this may not be Tolkien-level, it is still a hefty chunk of time to fill in the script doesn’t keep the action moving. Fans will go into a big fantasy blockbuster with the expectation that they are going to get a wall-to-wall action adventure, and that may be difficult for a movie that has to spend at least a little time developing its large group of central characters to a point the audience care about them.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will step up to the challenge on March 31 when it arrives in cinemas.