I don’t think it was that big. I read a ton of trash fantasy as a kid and never got around to it. Just going by goodreads review numbers, the first book has 1/5 the reviews that Eye of the World does. Plus it’s old; the last book was released 33 years ago.
The last book of the main trilogy. Feist has been milking that thing and releases like a book a year or so in that universe.
Haha, holy shit, you aren’t kidding. The 30th and last Riftwar book came out in 2013. It has only 6,800 goodreads reviews, but I guess someone must have been buying the things all those years.
I tried to read a Riftwar book once. It was terrible.
Just hire some good writers and create a new fantasy TV series. It can’t be that hard.
Or use one of these:
Wow. I enjoyed Magician, actually, and the other two were okay (to teenage me) but I had no idea he had kept running with that series.
New info!
The game is known for its war games, treasure hunts, camaraderie and reversals of fortune, all in a fantasy setting that combines humans, elves, orcs and hundreds of other creatures. The game famously uses multi-sided dice in gameplay and is overseen by a host known as the Dungeon Master.
Yeah, I guess that’s what we do!
Guesses on race/class combos for the announced actors so far? I figure Justice must be a paladin due to the name.
Hugh Grant! This is getting more interesting.
Will he play the Rules Lawyer player or the needlessly cruel DM?
I would add those to other D&D tropes they can explore:
-Hilarious player character deaths
-Rival adventuring party
-Lawful stupid or stupid good Pally
-Metagaming/Munchkin shit
-Ridiculous trap dungeons or maze with passages that all look alike
-Killing rats and lots of kobolds
-The party is drinking in the tavern, when the door suddenly bursts open. A man staggers in and collapses onto the floor, a dagger sticking out of his back. On his person is a mysterious blood-stained note and a rough map with a giant X marking a dungeon entrance
Is there any chance this ends up being anything but a grimdark Lord of the Rings ripoff that throws in a couple D&D-isms to make fans happy?
Well it has to be better than the one with Marlon Wayons, right?
I read that as B&D-isims. And for a moment, I was happy.
I will have you know that is TWISTY maze of passages that all look alike!
I vaguely recall reading an interview with him years ago, where he was a little sour on being type-cast and hoping to get to play the villain.
I think there’s a chance this becomes anything but, based on the mixed-positive pedigree of the writers-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, mentioned upthread. They may not be a writing-directing team like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller that can take a garbage franchise ridiculously unsuited for movies and turn it into spun gold. Literally compare Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 1 (Lord/Miller) and 2 (Goldstein/Daley). But their Game Night movie was a darn good time, and though they didn’t direct Spider-Man: Homecoming, they were some of the writers. And that one probably had my favorite script structure out of all the MCU movies, with a twist that was so good that the other MCU movies felt a little lazy by comparison. It also felt like a great High School movie and a great Superhero movie, and it’s never easy to blend genres and come up with something great.
As far as Wizards of the Coast and the D&D product team, they’ve come a long way since Jeremy Irons chewed scenery in the direction of his blue-lipped underlings. Starting in the critical doldrums of their fourth edition, they jumped on polls like firemen answering a call to adventure. They have become very cautious with product releases since releasing their fifth edition of the game. And when segments of the player base make noise – about hitherto ignored and unrepresented demographics, for instance – they throw that data into their data grinders, and study the results, and plot their next move. They’ve been plotting a movie to appease their Hasbrovian masters for over a decade, to maximize their potential profits and further increase the already historically swollen ranks of players. They’ve had seven years of increasing growth with their role-playing game product. This is their big chance and they will do their damnedest to hit their mark. If they pull it off, the sales bumps following Community and Stranger Things tie-ins will look like little waves before the tsunami.
Therefore, I don’t think the worst case scenario is a grimdark Lord of the Rings ripoff that throws in a couple D&D-isms to make fans happy. Grimdark? Passé. Ripoff? Mediocre. Fan pleasing? Well, maybe, but the fan base is a different beast than a generation ago. I think the worst case scenario is a movie overdesigned by committee and focus groups resulting in a bland and confusing script. Jokes would please a general audience but not inspire laughter. Fantasy action would be competent but uncompelling. The cast and characters would be pleasant enough and unobjectionable but in retrospect would be indistinguishable from the cast of Game Night, Date Night, and Tag, even the ones in chainmail or wielding wands. The direction would be competent but uninspired, their creative spark smothered by quarterly earnings reports tucked into script pages.
I dont know how good this will be but they are assembling an impressive amount of talent to do this thing. In the end though, it all comes down to “how good is the script?” because if the script sucks badly, no amount of acting talent can save it. They will have to find a balance between fan pandering and a serviceable story line because it will absolutely require some D&D tropes. If they lean too much into those, they will lose the general audience. If they snub those tropes they will disappoint the D&D fan base. The writers have their work cut out for them. Hopefully they are up to the task.
I agree with this and am trying to think of how you could accomplish this without it becoming cheesy.
Spells are easy. You can have someone cast magic missiles, which is pretty iconic D&D.
Monsters are easy. I guess either go with a Beholder or a Tiamat-style dragon.
But will they try to shoe-horn in the concept of a “dungeon master”? What about rolling dice? That’s where I think it starts to feel like a stretch.