Nerds have been cool for a while now, their dorky interests all but singlehandedly driving Hollywood’s economy. So it’s a bit strange that there has yet to be a Dungeons & Dragons movie in our franchise-heavy brave new world, despite having such high-profile fans as Vin Diesel and Joe Mangianello. But Hollywood’s working on it. As per The Hollywood Reporter, the movie version of the classic role-playing game, which has been in the works for a bit, will possibly be helmed by the makers of Game Night.
That would be Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, a dynamic duo who wrote Horrible Bosses, scored story credits on Spider-Man: Homecoming, and have both written and directed the Vacation reboot, as well as the aforementioned Game Night. (You may also remember Daley as the ever-endearingly unpopular, The Jerk-adoring Sam Weir on Freaks and Geeks.) They’re still negotiating with Paramount, who’s probably very excited to have a name brand that hasn’t been snatched up by Disney.
Of course, movie-wise, at least, that brand is a bit tainted. There’s already been a D&D movie, from back in 2000, that featured a hammy Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans as comic relief, and yet was still a massive bomb. (It did inspire a couple of direct-to-video sequels, though.) Presumably, a Goldstein-Daley Dungeons & Dragons will have to be at least a little intentionally funny, if not an outright comedy.
That said, the two are not writing the screenplay — that honor goes to one Michael Gilio — but Game Night is a remarkably well-directed comedy, with a penchant for visual gags and strong timing in a genre that tends to inspire aesthetic laziness. Surely they have the visual sophistication to handle something with sword-wielding himbos and mustachioed dwarves and, who knows, maybe a dragon or two.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
