What do you do when the intellectual property you’re basing your new film franchise on is basically “all fantasy ever”? You crib from someone else’s good ideas. That seems to be what Paramount has done with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves as it attempts to launch a new big-budget film and TV franchise off of the tabletop RPG game. The first Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer gives us a good feel for how the movie is going to play out, and it’s basically Guardians of the Galaxy but in fantasyland.
Of course, drawing from a universally praised couple of movies isn’t exactly a bad thing. Considering a solid chunk of D&D games is just a bunch of friends getting together and having fun, turning that into the premise of the film itself actually makes it feel more like D&D than an overly serious fantasy adventure with little redeeming value (looking at you, 2000s D&D movies). The plot of the film seems to be directly out of a Dungeon Master’s playbook, with a band of thieves stealing from the wrong person and having to set it right by going on an epic adventure. Chris Pine, playing a bard, is the leader of the troupe, and he gathers up a team to take on the bid bad guy, played by Hugh Grant.
Overall, this is a much more flattering look than the cosplay-like imagery we saw earlier today, and it’s clear that Paramount and Hasbro, which owns the rights to the game, are dumping cash into the movie. There are also plenty of nods to classic D&D challenges and characters throughout the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer, though honestly most of it goes way over my non-tabletop-gaming head. Still, the overall tone of the trailer feels kind of right for a property where anything can really happen depending on the luck of the die and the antics of your friends.
The rest of the cast is incredibly solid as well and includes Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Regé-Jean Page. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley with Michael Gilio helping on the screenplay. The official plot synopsis reads as follows:
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.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will release March 3, 2023.
