Dungeons and Dragons movie

An ensemble cast aims to bring comedy and adventure to this film made in the image of the popular role-playing game.

For a film about collaboration, the actors aren’t in tonal agreement about the movie they’re in. During one brawl, the editor Dan Lebental cuts again and again to Edgin stuck on the sidelines struggling to abrade his rope cuffs. Compared to that, the emotional climax is a bowl of cold groats. Can a C.G.I.-laden juggernaut evoke the freedom of improv? The story starts with a silver-tongued bard named Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine), a divorced barbarian named Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) and a simple challenge. The game hinges on cooperation and imagination — on the joy of friends inventing a creative way to trap an orc — and how in Hextor does that translate to sitting passively before a screen?

Find out if this campaign has many last-minute surprises without any major spoiilers.

In hindsight, it's not too much of a surprise, as Paramount is reportedly planning a cinematic universe of their own set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. John Wick is definitely the biggest threat since that's the most recent release, but seeing as how Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves appeals to wider audiences, the prospects are still looking pretty good for the fantasy film. Ultimately, the main thing that's going to decide a sequel to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is the metric that all studios look at when the studios gauge a franchise's long-term success - money. For one, we already know that the studio behind Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount, is already in the midst of developing more content set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, potentially setting up their own cinematic universe. Yes, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves does indeed have a quick scene during the credits, and you won't have to wait until they finish rolling to see what the film has in store. Packed to the brim with engaging characters, laugh-out-loud moments, and dozens upon dozens of references to the classic tabletop role-playing game that it's based on, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is practically an instant modern fantasy classic.

The new movie “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Hugh Grant, has no business being as good as it is.

“Honor Among Thieves” is a useful reminder of something that’s been forgotten in the age of dense film universes and ultra-violent action films: Light-hearted adventure movies like “The Princess Bride” remain the perfect vehicle for humor, romance, fights and special effects. That bit clearly takes inspiration from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and its talk of swallows and shrubberies. Holga could easily be a simple badass who punches and delivers punchlines, but a solid chunk of the story is devoted to her (very funny) breakup with a former beau. What “Dungeons and Dragons” gets right that so many proliferating group-of-superheroes movies get wrong is that every character has a rich backstory that the script commits to — rather than settling for the cast being a collection of traits in search of an all-powerful object. Thankfully, you don’t have to know anything about the meticulously detailed game — its Wikipedia page is about as readable as the green lines of code from “The Matrix” — to fully enjoy the goofy and reasonably clever “Honor.” And the source material, the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons,” is famously confusing and impenetrable to outsiders.

Chris Pine takes on a scheming Hugh Grant in an irreverent big-budget transformation of the fantasy role-playing game.

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4/5 Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Hugh Grant are all on superb form in this funny razzle-dazzle adaptation.

A new Dungeons and Dragons beer has been announced to celebrate the release of the Honour Among Thieves movie in UK and Irish cinemas.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the new film, is the sort of aimless, generally good-natured fantasy-comedy that used to appear regularly, ...

I wanted to see a Beholder!” and “Huh, that malapropism probably shouldn’t have made it to the shooting script.” In other words, they are minor and don’t violate the very spirit of the film, which is goofy and generous and unconcerned with anything except providing its roster of pleasant comic actors with Indiana Jones-style one-liners and hair’s-breadth escapes, just as a good Dungeon Master ought to do. Film is structured and unforgiving, while the joy of D&D comes from those unexpected dice-rolls that give our friends and enemies advantages and handicaps that fly in the face of the way they’ve played the game. The statistical description of an event might simply be that a player rolled a 20 and the Dungeon Master rolled a 1, but the story those two Gygaxian numbers tell is of a wounded bard, half dark elf, betrayed by his people and friendless on the edge of a volcano, letting fly a wild bolt from his crossbow with a scream of hopeless defiance only to see the bolt pierce the eye of the ice dragon bearing down on him and send it toppling, enraged, into the fatal lava below. It’s hard to translate the joys of a good Dungeons & Dragons session into a non-participatory art form. Players assume various roles and make various rolls to see how well they compete against monsters and traps laid out by one of their friends, who, as the Dungeon Master, decides how the events of the story will unfold (sometimes with help from prefab D&D scenarios written by pros). It is silly, sure, and it has its contrived moments. Here, in Gygax’s bestiary, sat dozens of fantasy beings from nearly as many legendary and religious traditions, all collated and ranked against one another so that he and his friends could definitively declare and then demonstrate how many dwarves it takes to overrun a dragon, with even the prospect of heroism allowed by higher rolls of the trusty D20 (or, in the original game, a series of chits drawn from a cup, as icosahedral dice were not yet widely available). The raw materials—the sourcebooks, manuals, and modules—have already been reduced down from imaginative literature into the kind of text you find on the back of a baseball card. When he does, it’s the kind of personal growth one might find oneself to have accomplished, quite by accident, in the midst of a good D&D session with close friends, and it would be no less surprising there than here. Some of the monsters seem to be puppets, in addition to the expected CGI nonsense. The plot, down to the joke that pays off as a post-credits gag, is eminently predictable, but there’s also less celebrity mugging than in, say, [Stardust](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/08/the-critical-buzz-on-stardust-and-rocket-science.html), the only entry I can remember in this once-reliable genre in the past two decades, give or take, and as an adaptation of the source material, I think it’s probably not too grand to say that it works perfectly. Many of the jokes are genuinely funny, and several of the characters have consistent traits that grow or diminish as the film progresses.

The new fantasy adventure film is based on the popular game that's been around since 1974 and popularized recently by shows such as "Stranger Things."

Jeremy Irons' manic performance in 2000's Dungeons and Dragons is completely over the top — and it's the best thing about the movie.

Irons' fiery speech isn't just one of the better parts of the movie; it also possesses an energy that the rest of the cast and crew desperately needed. That person is Jeremy Irons, and he happens to be playing the antagonist! Take the opening scene, where Profion attempts to use a scepter to control a gold dragon. But one person manages to stand out and be the best thing in the movie. That honor — or dishonor, depending on who you ask — goes to the Dungeons & Dragons film directed by Courtney Solomon in 2000. Paramount also has plans to forge a multimedia empire, including a television series and the movie,

Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez have terrific buddy-movie chemistry in fantasy film that deftly balances high-stakes action, warm drama and clever comedy.

In a relatively limited role, Regé-Jean Page effortlessly steals every scene he’s in, while Daisy Head is legit terrifying as Sofina and Hugh Grant does his Hugh Grant thing as the ludicrous and terrible Forge Fitzwilliam. They each have different goals, but the elaborate and sometimes dizzying plot boils down to this ragtag but determined band somehow defeating the nefarious Forge Fitzwilliam—and his infinitely more dangerous partner in death and destruction, the Red Wizard known as Sofina (Daisy Head), a pure psychopath with seemingly unlimited powers. Now it’s time for Edgin to make a plan, because after all, Dungeons & Dragons is all about making plans to save the day, and adjusting those plans accordingly along the way, yes? (The cheeky overall tone of “Dungeons” is quickly established when Edgin and Holga execute a daring escape during a hearing before the prison board; they’re just out of earshot when a parole board member calls out that they’ve actually been approved for release.) (There are a lot of weird creatures with jarring appearances roaming and flitting around.) Edgin and Holga learn their former ally, the duplicitous Forge Fitzwilliam (cue Hugh Grant to start hamming it up) has risen to power and has also become the de facto father to Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman). Which brings us to the good news: Even if you’re never once rolled the dice in the role-playing game, there’s a solid chance you’ll enjoy the whiz-bang fantasy adventure that is “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.” Co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, working from a script they penned with Michael Gilio, have struck the right balance between high-stakes action, warm drama and clever comedy in a consistently engaging, mostly family-friendly romp that features some of the most spot-on casting of any film so far this year.

Movie review: "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" could use a trim, but what matters is that the comedy-fantasy romp is accessible to everyone.

She is now the ward of one of their former partners-in-crime, Forge Fitzwilliam (Grant), who has ascended to rule the great metropolis of Neverwinter with the help of a powerful Red Wizard, Sofina (Daisy Head, “Shadow and Bone”). If nothing else, though, you can always sit back and enjoy Pine, the veteran of three “Star Trek” movies and myriad other projects. (This IS “Dungeons & Dragons,” after all. To be clear, they do an acceptable job, but portions of “Honor Among Thieves” rarely feel as strong as it could have been. Thanks to the production notes, we can tell you “Honor Among Thieves” is set within the geographical boundaries of the Forgotten Realms setting, introduced in 1987. A hulking creature of some sort is being added to their not-so-happy home, and after Edgin points out the amenities — essentially the bucket where, as he puts it, their pee freezes — Holga teaches the newbie a lesson about treating her with respect.

The mysterious villain has been a lingering threat in Dungeons & Dragons history, and 'Honor Among Thieves' provides a reminder why.

[Chris Pine](https://collider.com/tag/chris-pine/)) and his motley crew of thieves, who manage to give Forge's ill-gotten gains to the people of Netherwinter and defeat Sofina in battle. A Dungeons & Dragons television series is also in the works at Paramount+, and while details remain scarce Tam could prove to be a formidable threat in future D&D stories. He was part of the Council of Zulkirs, which consisted of eight of the most powerful Red Wizards to ever live. Though Tam only appears in a few scenes of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, his actions end up having a major influence on the plot. [Its mix of humor, heart, and fantasy action has drawn praise](https://collider.com/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-among-thieves-review/), as well as the way that directors/co-writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein manage to utilize the rich mythology of Dungeons & Dragons. [Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves](https://collider.com/tag/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-among-thieves/) is the rare adaptation that will hook casual viewers as well as long-time Dungeons & Dragons players.

With Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves now in theaters, here's what you can expect in the film's mid-credits scene.

The crew then departs, but they were so caught up in the answer to where the Helmet is that they left Ven there, still undead because they didn't ask him five questions. That miraculous artifact is the Helmet of Disjunction, but the only issue is that it was lost many years ago during the Battle of the Evermoors. Needing a plan and needing one fast, Simon brings up a long-lost artifact that is capable of nullifying even the most powerful spells. Before diving into the end-credits sequence itself, here's a recap of the standout cemetery scene.After assembling his ragtag team of thieves, consisting of the fearsome barbarian Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), the awkward mage Simon (Justice Smith), and the freedom-fighting druid Doric (Sophia Lillis), Edgin the charismatic bard (Chris Pine) begins workshopping his epic heist. As those who sat through the first round of credits in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves know, there is a mid-credits in the film. That being said, the door for a sequel certainly seems open, as there are quite a few outstanding plot threads in Honor Among Thieves.

The first proper D&D movie in over 20 years, Honor Among Thieves is a comedic adventure set within the world of Wizard of the Coast's seminal tabletop RPG.

The video also reveals a Nintendo Switch OLED Model The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom edition will be available on April 28, 2023, with a Nintendo Switch Pro controller - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom edition and Nintendo Switch carrying case - Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom edition available on May 12, 2023.The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be available on Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023.](/videos/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-official-gameplay-demonstration) It was directed by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley and stars the following actors: A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Cast The company's last two films to hit Paramount+ — Babylon and Smile — came to the service 60 and 46 days after their respective theatrical debuts. What is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves About?

Justice Smith plays Simon Chris Pine plays Edgin Sophia Lillis plays Doric and Michelle Rodriguez plays. Courtesy of Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures.

So how does a movie that relies so heavily on tropes manage to voice feeling tropey? The treasure truly is the friends they made along the way. And it’s not always easy to predict which aspects of the original book, show, or comic fans want to see on the big screen. [bizarre knife-map](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-sith-dagger-plot-hole/) in Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise of Skywalker comes to mind.) Yet, in Honor Among Thieves, every quest—including a magical heist and undead interrogations—feels like it matters. (The Chances are slim that any studio or filmmaker correctly guesses what D&D fans might want in a movie adaptation.

"Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" is the latest stab at turning the decades-old D&D franchise into a blockbuster hit.

The “Honor Among Thieves” filmmakers took pains to also make the project accessible to people who’ve never rolled a 20-sided die in their lives. “Now we are in these roles of decision-makers and professionals with some good tenure under our belt, and so we can finally make the project that is so close to our heart.” “Make sure that you tell a story that, even if you’ve never picked up a dice before or read one of the D&D books, you can relate to.” The project would in many ways be a repudiation of prior efforts to adapt D&D for the screen — but that doesn’t mean the brand has completely shed its history. “They’re a treasure, and everyone’s on the hunt.” Properties that were once considered the domain of “nerd culture” are now mainstream. In TV, HBO’s “The Last of Us” turned an award-winning video game into a prestige drama. “We make games and we fuel play.” releases “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s take on the Mattel doll, this summer. The last high-profile stab at turning the popular tabletop role-playing game into a feature film, 2000’s New Line Cinema production “Dungeons & Dragons,” was savaged by critics and bombed at the box office. Board game and toy adaptations have faced similar problems, as with “Battleship” (2012). “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” begins with actor Chris Pine begging for a second chance.

A game cast, solid jokes and a refreshingly light touch when it comes to adapting the deep lore of the beloved tabletop role-playing game make for a ...

But to complain about the number of fetch quests in a D&D film would be like complaining that a movie about Scrabble features too much spelling. A plotline involving Edgin's daughter (Chloe Coleman) and his dead wife exists to up the stakes and motivate his actions in the thuddingly predictable manner of Hollywood action movies. But the movie even manages to shake off that mild complaint, given its nature. There is the world of the game, in which your characters experience epic struggles and extreme violence and suffering unto (and sometimes beyond) death, while above it, there is the world of the table, around which you and your friends sit scarfing hard sourdough pretzels and joking about how badly you're all about to get boned. (Paladins, for those unfamiliar, are the smug, preening, condescending white knights of the D&D world — a bunch of Frasier Cranes in plate mail.) Page nails the necessary hauteur and supreme confidence while layering them with a guileless sincerity that turns his character into a weapon aimed at Pine's character's every insecurity. It's the kind of role Pine was engineered in some secret subterranean Hollywood breeding facility to play: a character who not only rides the razor's edge between charm and smarm but who sets up housekeeping there. Worried you'll be bombarded with obscure references to places and characters from the game? And then, should you allow yourself a moment of reflection, it likely occurs to you how weirdly right it seems, how well that familiar approach seems uniquely attuned to the film's subject. And speaking of smarm: Hugh Grant, as a rakish rogue, is once again serving us the kind of full-bore, insufferably plummy poshness he gifted the world within Paddington 2. The lights go down, and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves begins (if you're me, you at this point maybe think to yourself, "We come to this place ... for Magic Missile"), and sure enough, there it is, manifesting right there in the opening seconds of the very first scene: that same, predictable, inescapable approach. It's a formula, a ritual, an attempt to dispel the grim specter of Cringe.

After rolling for initiative, it will prepare for combat against “John Wick: Chapter 4,” last weekend's box office champion — and it'll be a close battle.

“Dungeons and Dragons” should finish the month on a strong note. (For the uninitiated, these are all classes that real-life Dungeons and Dragons players can use to create their personalized characters.) The party of thieves turned heroes must band together to defeat an evil Red Wizard and save Edgin’s daughter (Chloe Coleman). After rolling for initiative, it will prepare for combat against “John Wick: Chapter 4,” last weekend’s box office champion — and it’ll be a close battle.

Film critic Peter Travers shares his review of "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," out in theaters March 31.

"D&D" knows it's more Monty Python than "Lord of the Rings" and that's its secret sauce. The murder of his wife has forced Edgin to raise their daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) with only the help of a tattooed barbarian Holga (a sly, scrappy Michelle Rodriguez). Kirk in the "Star Trek" film reboot, brings the same snarky wink to his role as Edgin Darvis, a poet knight-turned-thief with a quest.

Now, Paramount comes in with Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The film stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, and Sophia Lillis as a ...

If the movie had taken itself more seriously and tried to break out of the patterns established by Disney, I think this film could have been the start of a more memorable series. The world of D&D has a unique set of rules, abilities, and inhabitants, and the film mines them for inspiration. But you could also skip this movie and watch Thor: Love and Thunder or Ant-Man and the Wasp or any number of other Marvel or Marvel-esque movies and walk away with the same feeling. Structurally the story is fine, though I didn’t like having the majority of the characters introduced via flashback in the first half. On the pro side, I’ll give Dungeons and Dragons this: it had a lot of nice ideas for set pieces and action scenes. Is the movie worth the dungeon crawl to the movie theaters?

Based on Hasbro's popular game, the movie's ensemble cast includes Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis, among others.

If all goes well, Honor Among Thieves will launch a new movie franchise for Paramount and eOne. And either way, it expands the overall D&D universe for Hasbro. To do so, however, means bumping off Lionsgate’s The film also launches in more than 50 markets overseas, including the U.K., where eOne is distributing. The film reunites Game Night helmers Goldstein and Daley, who directed from a script they wrote with Michael Gilio. [John Wick: Chapter 4](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/john-wick-chapter-4/), which debuted to a rousing $73.8 million last weekend and could earn $30 million or more in its sophomore outing. The adventure epic expands into a total of 3,855 locations Friday morning, including a plethora of premium-format screens. The game went on to inspire books, TV shows, video games and movies — including New Line’s ill-fated 2000 pic — among other media. [seminal tabletop game](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-review-chris-pine-1235348051/) first published in 1974. [Chris Pine](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/chris-pine/), [Michelle Rodriguez](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/michelle-rodriguez/), Regé-Jean Page, [Justice Smith](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/justice-smith/), [Sophia Lillis](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/sophia-lillis/), Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head and Hugh Grant. [Tracking suggests the movie will open](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-offocie-preview-dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-1235363692/) to a somewhat subdued $30 million domestically, but many box office analysts believe that number will come in higher thanks to [stellar reviews](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-review-chris-pine-1235348051/) and strong early audience reaction commending the movie’s smart sense of adventure and jovial spirit. [box office](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/box-office/).

Paramount and eOne's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has made $5.6M in previews. That's not all from Thursday showtimes, which began at 3 p.m., ...

Watch the trailer below: Uncharted is a good comp here to D&D. At the high-end, it’s a hopeful $65M global start. [Lionsgate’s Joe Drake Wants To See Keanu Reeves In More ‘John Wick’ Pics After ‘Chapter 4’ Franchise Record B.O. D&D gains a majority of the premium venues from Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 this weekend. The hope by all is that the pic overindexes this weekend, but it might be a slow burn for the film; it’s the only new live-action PG-13 fanboy choice heading into the Easter frame next weekend.

Paramount and Entertainment One's “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” got off to a promising start yesterday. The $150 million adaptation of the ...

A 12% to 15% Thursday-to-weekend figure would still give the film a $37 million to $47 million launch, both of which would be quite encouraging. That’s just one reason why the acclaimed and buzzy animated sequel has earned around $185 million domestic and $475 million worldwide from a relatively slight opening weekend. Tracking has been at around $30 million for weeks, but all parties hope the would-be franchise starter will benefit from strong reviews, encouraging word-of-mouth and a lack of kid-friendly offerings in recent months.

Game on: Exceeding any reasonable expectations, "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" turns out to be a whole lot of fun, serving up a smart-alecky ...

Ultimately, “Dungeons & Dragons” delivers enough laughs and thrills to justify braving a trip to the theater. While the two properties otherwise have little in common, the appeal of HBO’s There’s an unavoidably episodic nature to the story, but the movie does an admirable job of rapidly defining the characters. [“The Last of Us”](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/10/entertainment/the-last-of-us-review/index.html) and now this (considerably less dour) adaptation offer a bit more hope that the cash grab associated with the practice doesn’t have to lead to a creative wasteland. [Chris Pine](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/entertainment/chris-pine-harry-styles-spit/index.html)) and the fearsome Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) are a pair of thieves, having stumbled into that line of work to raise his daughter (Chloe Coleman, also seen in the recent release [“65”](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/entertainment/65-review/index.html)), before the pair get tossed into prison for “grand larceny and skulduggery.” Edgin and Holga must thus embark on a quest in order to get the girl back, enlisting the help of a not-too-talented wizard, Simon (Justice Smith), and the shape-shifting Doric (“It” star Sophia Lillis), fighting off a series of threats as they seek the means of breaking into the castle to retrieve the kid.

The good news is that 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' is not as long as an actual game of 'Dungeons & Dragons.'

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brings the rich world and playful spirit of the legendary roleplaying game to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure. [UPROXX’s Mike Ryan](https://uproxx.com/tag/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-among-thieves/) called Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves “lighthearted and fun.” Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie holds an [89 percent rating](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dungeons_and_dragons_honor_among_thieves) with critics — and rates even higher with audiences.

The filmmakers behind “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” help explain the characters, monsters and spells that make up their new film.

Instead, any of the script you see throughout the film is written in Thorass, a well-known in-game “Dungeons” language with its own established alphabet. “If they go from Triboar to the Evermoors by horseback, we know that it’s a certain distance and that it would be possible,” Goldstein said. Daley and Goldstein always knew they wanted to begin the movie this way — but when they reached out to the game’s manufacturer, Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro), to ask if such a prison existed in the wintry region of Icewind Dale, they were informed that none did. “We treated it like it was a movie about a real place with a real history.” “More so even than seeing our names on the poster for the movie.” “The intention was for nothing in the film to have to be explained prior to seeing it,” said Daley, who co-wrote the screenplay with Goldstein and Michael Gilio, in a recent video interview. “Honor Among Thieves” is rife with curious creatures — all of them taken from the original game. It’s a big owl-bear hybrid that the druid, Doric, transforms into a couple of times in the film. But Daley said that the alignments were less expressly conceived for the film than “coincidentally obvious” based on the way all fictional characters tend to be written. “We knew that was of the utmost importance, so that we’re not alienating an audience that doesn’t know D&D.” Although the film contains more than enough Easter eggs and references to satisfy die-hard fans, “none of that is a requirement,” said Goldstein. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” a comedy-fantasy movie from the directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, is a loose adaptation of the tabletop role-playing game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, more commonly known among fans as D&D. One of their primary adversaries is Szass Tam, the leader of the Red Wizards, who rules as a dictator of the nation of Thay.

LOS ANGELES — “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” begins with actor Chris Pine begging for a second chance. His character, a lute-playing bard ...

“Now we are in these roles of decision-makers and professionals with some good tenure under our belt, and so we can finally make the project that is so close to our heart.” “They’re a treasure, and everyone’s on the hunt.” Properties that were once considered the domain of “nerd culture” are now mainstream. “We make games and we fuel play.” In TV, HBO’s “The Last of Us” turned an award-winning video game into a prestige drama. The last high-profile stab at turning the popular tabletop role-playing game into a feature film, 2000’s New Line Cinema production “Dungeons & Dragons,” was savaged by critics and bombed at the box office.

So how you do play 'Dungeons & Dragons,' anyway? Justice Smith (from left) plays sorcerer Simon, Chris Pine is Edgin the Bard. Players take on a ...

"The idea of injecting that sense of fun and humor that you get out of playing is not a betrayal of the genre," Daley says. Goldstein says the ones they picked came from a “somewhat complicated calculus” of what they could depict realistically, fans' favorites and what served the story best. And Mazzanoble is glad to see the game inspiring children as it has since the ’70s. It was important to him that “Honor Among Thieves” reflects the joy of being part of a game as opposed to more somber or serious fantasy fare. During the pandemic, people gravitated toward playing D&D online “to have this creative outlet (and) escape this little insular world that we were all living in,” says Mazzanoble, who co-wrote the book “Welcome to Dragon Talk” with Tito. “And we also needed to have a couple of dragons in there, for obvious reasons.” Here’s a fun fact: D&D was the epitome of geek culture way before "Harry Potter," "Game of Thrones" and Marvel movies made it cool. John Francis Daley, who directed the new “Dragons” movie with Jonathan Goldstein, bowed out of a D&D campaign that had been going for three and a half years to focus on filming. “As long as we're all agreeing on a time, the location doesn't matter, we can all play together.” Players take on a type of character in their “party” – be it a powerful barbarian, sneaky rogue, magic-wielding sorcerer, or heroic paladin – while one person is the Dungeon Master who presents monsters, obstacles and other encounters for the characters to face with the roll of a die. “Seeing on the local news Pat Robertson saying, ‘This is so bad for you,’ of course, it quadrupled sales pretty much overnight when that started happening,” Peterson adds. [learn the basics](https://dnd.wizards.com/how-to-play)?

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is projected to take in a strong opening weekend that could outgross the original 2000 film's entire run.

However, this opening weekend success could lead to a bright future for the theatrical wing of the franchise at long last. [Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves](https://screenrant.com/tag/dungeons-and-dragons-movie/) may take three days to outgross the original film. However, the attempts to bring the world to the big screen have fizzled, including the original film's TV sequel Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, and its direct-to-video follow-up, Dungeons & Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness.

'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley explain how they got the A-lister to play a halfling.

And so all of the actors that we wanted to bring out, we would have had to quarantine for 10 days. There was a filmmaker that was a friend of the court at Paramount, who had been an actor as well and was down to do it. He was really good and nuanced. Daley: It was a really tricky situation, getting that part. We had so much fun on that show because the stakes were so low. Daley: So we rebuilt the chair, which was massive. We all kind of assumed that we were going to be canceled. And so it was Bradley’s idea that I’d read with him for old times sake. He said, “BC from KC.” I’m like, “What?” “‘Kitchen Confidential!'” I’m like, “Oh, shit!” I immediately called him. At one point in the characters’ journey, Holga decides to stop by the village where she and Mariamin used to live to see him again. It was sent to his agent, but I sent him a letter saying like, “It’d be fun to play again.” I got a text from him from a number I didn’t recognize saying, “Yo, is this still John?” And I said, “Who’s this?” Because I’ve gotten weird texts before from strangers. There are paladins and sorcerers, red wizards and owlbears, bards and barbarians — all of them written by Goldstein and Daley and performed by Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Hugh Grant, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis and Daisy Head with the same good-natured pluck that has imbued the countless campaigns waged by the game’s players.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is the '80s fantasy movie you never knew you were missing. In addition to beautifully capturing the spirit of the ...

Good costuming is a treat for the eyes, and doesn’t need to look precisely real to look right. Though the movie does have good CGI, what’s even better is that they also use old-school costuming and puppetry. The movie starts with a prison scene that sets the stage for a group of adventuring thieves. There are a few moments where you might even get choked up, and the ending is fantastically satisfying on both an emotional and narrative level. The same is true for subtle structural touches to the story that reflect how an actual D&D game would unfold, recognizable to fans but integrated so seamlessly that regular viewers won’t even notice. Add fantastic real effects, a fun cast, and great world building, and you have a story fantasy fans will want to watch again and again.

Movie Review: In 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,' the classic game gets a comedy revamp and winds up funny and exciting in equal measure.

When our heroes realize that to discover the location of the Helmet of Disjunction they have to use a spell that lets them ask five questions to a corpse, they dig up a grave and raise the dead soldier within. That dude turns out to be the brother of the corpse they really wanted, and on and on it goes. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is the work of filmmakers who understand that the best way to take stuff like this seriously is not to take it seriously at all, and to have fun with it. [Game Night](https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/game-night-review.html), was among the rare comedy hits of the past five years. Before that, they made the much-maligned [Vacation](https://www.vulture.com/2015/07/movie-review-vacation.html) reboot, an orgy of nonsensical, giggle-like-an-idiot belly laughs that may just be the most underrated American studio comedy since Freddy Got Fingered. [all about the retrieving of magical objects](https://www.vulture.com/2014/08/guardians-of-the-galaxy-macguffin-plea-enough-with-the-orbs.html), but that’s largely because they seem to take these quests so damn seriously. So to retrieve the Tablet of Reawakening, our heroes have to defeat the Arcane Seal of Mordenkainen, and to do that they must obtain something called the Helmet of Disjunction, and along the way there are Hither Thither Staffs, invisibility pendants, anti-magic bracelets, and assorted spells and challenges. Other members of their team, which they assemble over the course of the movie, include a hapless, self-flagellating sorcerer, Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), and a very capable, confident tiefling druid (I am pretending to know what that means) named Doric (Sophia Lillis), who has had enough of humans and has joined the Emerald Enclave resistance movement. Anyway, not only has Forge taken Edgin’s daughter, but he also took from him something called the Tablet of Reawakening, which has the power to bring back one person from the dead. They somehow manage to play to the base — their film is filled with medieval derring-do, unpronounceable fantasy-speak, and what I can only assume is a cornucopia of nerdtastic Easter eggs — while acknowledging the inherent ridiculousness and impenetrability of the concept. He and his barbarian partner, Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), have just escaped from prison, where they were serving a sentence for “grand larceny and skulduggery,” on the back of an enormous bird-human-hybrid member of their parole board. But this time, directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein seem willing to meet those of us who couldn’t care less about D&D (or who were traumatized by it as kids) halfway.