Dungeons & Dragons (2000 film)

Dungeons & Dragons is a 2000 fantasy adventure film directed by Courtney Solomon and written by Carroll Cartwright and Topper Lilien.

About[]

Dungeons & Dragons is based on the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. The film follows an empress who wishes to get hold of a mythical rod that will help her fight an evil wizard, and enlists two thieves for help. The film stars Justin Whalin, Marlon Wayans, Thora Birch, Zoe McLellan, Kristen Wilson, Lee Arenberg, Bruce Payne and Jeremy Irons.

Parts of the film were made on location at Sedlec Ossuary.

Despite it being a box office bomb, and a critical failure, a made-for-TV sequel, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, was released in 2005. It was not a direct continuation of the storyline of the previous film, though Bruce Payne's character, Damodar, makes a return. A third film, Dungeons & Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness, was shot in 2011 and released direct-to-DVD in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2012.

Plot[]

Izmir's young Empress, Savina, rules with the power of a scepter that allows her to control gold dragons. When she wants to give rights to the common people, she's opposed by the Council of Mages, led by the evil Profion. They demand that she hand over the scepter. She refuses and, anticipating a conflict, both sides try to get their hands on the legendary Rod of Savrille, which would let them control red dragons.

Teenage thieves Ridley and Snails try to rob the Sumdall magic school. They're caught by a young apprentice named Marina, just as Profion's assistant Damodar attacks the library wizard to get his map to the Rod of Savrille. Marina, Ridley, and Snails manage to escape with the map, and join with a dwarf named Elwood.

They discover that to enter the tomb containing the Rod, they need a ruby key called the "Eye of the Dragon." Ridley finds it in a deadly maze in the thieves' guild in Antius, but Damodar arrives and captures Marina and the map before they can flee. The rest of the group escape, only to be captured by the elf Norda, a paladin who is working for the Empress. Realizing they are fighting for the same cause, they free Marina and get the map back, although Snails dies in the attempt.

They get the Rod of Savrille, although Damodar takes it from them and gives it to Profion. He and the other mages fight against the Empress, with dragons on both sides, until Ridley kills Damodar, and gets the Rod of Savrille back from Profion. Marina encourages Ridley to use the Rod to bring Profion down, but Ridley, realizing the Rod's power will corrupt him, refuses and destroys it. Then the Empress has a gold dragon kill Profion.

Ridley later visits Snails' grave with Marina, Elwood, and Norda. When he places the Eye of the Dragon on the grave, the ruby starts to glow and Snails' name disappears, and so Ridley decides to try and bring Snails back from the dead. The group elects to join him, and the ruby transports them all away.

Cast[]

Justin Whalin as Ridley Freeborn, a rogue/thief
Marlon Wayans as Snails, a rogue/thief
Zoe McLellan as Marina Pretensa, a young mage
Lee Arenberg as Elwood Gutworthy, a dwarf fighter
Kristen Wilson as Norda, an elven ranger
Jeremy Irons as Mage Profion
Bruce Payne as Damodar
Thora Birch as Empress Savina
Edward Jewesbury as Vildan Vildir
Richard O'Brien as Xilus, leader of a thieves guild
Tom Baker as Halvarth the Elf
Robert Miano as Azmath
Tomas Havrlik and Stanislav Ondricek as Mages
Martin Astles and Matthew O'Toole as Orcs
David O'Kelly as Three Eyes
Kia Jam, Nicolas Rochette, and David Mandis as thieves
Robert Henny as Crimson Brigade
Roman Hemala as Council Mage
Andrew Blau and Marta Urbanová as elves
Jirí Machácek as Loyalist General

Dave Arneson, the co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, makes a cameo appearance in deleted scenes.

Development[]

Background[]

The earliest attempt at a feature-length adaptation of a Dungeons & Dragons property by the major film industry date to the early 1980s, as there was a strong interest in producing a film based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; Gary Gygax had several discussions with producers and agents about the idea, and a screenplay by James Goldman received eyeballs from major studios. However, nothing came about this due to conflicts between TSR and the studios. Dungeons & Dragons player Courtney Solomon, who had personal experience with the entertainment industry as a child because his mother was a production coordinator on television series filmed in Toronto, wanted to produce a film based on the game since 1990.

Negotiations and funding[]

1990–1997: TSR and studio deals[]

In 1990, Solomon contacted staff from Dungeons & Dragons's publisher, TSR, under the guise of working on a school economics project; they informed him about studios in the past failing to produce a film based on the game, due to having too little of an understanding of the RPG's X-factor. It took him 18 months to convince TSR to set up negotiations, but TSR finally agreed to it, because of his upfront royalty, being better than other studios the company worked with, according to vice president Ryan Dancey. Solomon obtained an option from TSR after writing a 30-page proposal showing how he would adapt the game and going through three months of "intense" broker dealing with the game publisher.

Solomon went on an 18-month-long trip across the world funding the film once a draft of the screenplay was completed,> During the trip, he met a leading businessman in Asia named Allan Zeman, who viewed the 24-year-old as a "young, ambitious, artistic person" as well as a "convincing salesman" of a project based on an enterprise with a huge fanbase. In early 1992, Zeman and Solomon formed Sweetpea Entertainment to fund Dungeons & Dragons and sell it to other investors.

Originally, Solomon planned to have Dungeons & Dragons be a $100 million studio project with a big name in the director's chair; during development, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Renny Harlin, and Stan Winston were attached for directing the film at one point but dropped out. In addition to the script receiving positive coverage from the magazine Movieline, Premiere also announced the project in a 1995 issue when Winston was still signed on, revealing plot details such as a rogue lead, a magical dragon-controlling device, 14 creatures from the original game, and an effects-heavy final battle.

A majority of studios and directors loved the screenplay, but turned away due to a lack of recent successes in the big-budget fantasy genre and Justin Whalin's lack of star power. Solomon and the studios he encountered constantly conflicted with TSR, which wanted a direct-to-video release instead of the big-budget theatrical film the Canadian dreamed of. Cameron considered the project just before he did Titanic (1997), but the deal did not suffice due to TSR's failure to come up with a merchandising deal that appealed to 20th Century Fox, where Cameron worked. Potential deals with Paramount Pictures and Lightstorm Entertainment were also destroyed due to strong disagreements on how to finance the film. Solomon's amount of focus on getting the film green-lit caused the relationship with his girlfriend to break apart.

1997–1998: Joel Silver and Wizards of the Coast[]

Joel Silver, an executive producer most notable for action films such as the Die Hard movies, joined the Dungeon & Dragons project in April 1997, and the screenplay was finalized in June 1997. Silver came in with the vision to make it a television series instead of a film. Solomon thus tried to incorporate that plan in his project; however, TSR sold the rights of the original game property to Wizards of the Coast, and despite TSR leader Lorraine Williams telling Solomon Wizards would allow a TV series, that ultimately was not the case.

The plan changed to a $3.5 million direct-to-video film, as the $100 million budget appeared too risky and TSR's set filming deadline was nearing; what allowed for the change was technological advancements decreasing required effects money, and the availability of Prague as a shooting location, which had several medieval-era-looking places and thus lessened the need of costly studio sets. Solomon became director and started test shooting a three-minute scene battle in Los Angeles in August 1997. Silver was so roused by it that he stayed on the project as executive producer and thus increased the project's credibility to the point where investors raised up to $30 million. This now made the production a theatrical one and also saved the producers from legal action by Wizards of the Coast, who argued it was not a "real" film. Zeman put the money up for the project, in addition to Solomon and his grandfather Joe Smuckler co-signing a $25,000 bank loan, to begin pre-production on February 9, 1998.

Due to filming in a Czech Republic location, Dungeons & Dragons' props and sets cost five times less than if shot in the United States. Although the final budget totaled to $35 million, the film was made with $21 million in cash during production, as there were several deferments in effects crew and actors' pay to meet its intended large scale. To maximize the quality of the film's effects with a limited budget, Solomon made equity deals between the effects houses involved so that less money was paid. At the time of its release, Dungeons & Dragons was the biggest-budget independent film ever produced.

Writing[]

Solomon began writing the script in 1991 based on the rules of the second edition of the basic Dungeons & Dragons game; he planned Dungeons & Dragons to be a film trilogy, his goal being to create "the Star Wars of the fantasy genres" using the original trilogy as a template for the story arcs. Two Miramax script doctors, Carroll Cartwright and Topper Lilien, were interviewed to be additional writers in April 1992, thanks to an executive's connection with Solomon.

To give the writers an idea of the quality expected in the screenplay, Solomon first required them to view 1980s fantasy films he felt showed the bad state of the genre at the time, and then adventure productions like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Ben-Hur (1959). The first draft of the film took eighteen months to complete. Solomon claimed the final product is a collection of different scenes from 16 drafts.

Although the class of characters and rules of Dungeons & Dragons are brought over to the film, Solomon decided to create a generic setting only loosely based on one of the lesser-known game settings, Mystara; he felt using specific campaign settings heavily dependent on player interpretation would confuse viewers. He also had to risk the combat actions not reflecting how players would use them; for example, "somebody could be casting one of those spells and standing there for ten minutes until the spell is ready to go," explained Solomon. Spells were occasionally altered if their original descriptions were not "visual" enough to be present on screen; for instance, a Mind Flayer in the film controls another character by going inside him rather than controlling him from a distance. Another small creative liberty was the red dragons being more powerful than the gold dragons.

Casting[]

The cast of Dungeons & Dragons was a mixture of established film actors and up-and-comers in Hollywood. Most of the casting took place in London starting April 21, 1999, due to the Prague shooting location; this resulted in the inclusion of actors like the Fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker and Richard O'Brien, whom Solomon cast with knowledge of his performance as Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), a film released the same year as the first Dungeons & Dragons game. A-list actors were mostly avoided for leads in order for the characters to look like "normal" players of a Dungeons & Dragons match.

For the part of Ridley, in particular, Solomon looked for "someone who wasn't a movie star but who could be." Whalin, a Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star who had disinterest in most fantasy films, became a part of the project due to a strong friendship between him and Solomon; he was the only one to join the project before the start of pre-production, entering in December 1997, and had to reject several other acting offers to make himself available. Thora Birch was cast for the project shortly after she finished filming American Beauty (1999) and before she became a breakthrough actress once it was released; she chose to play the positive-minded empress Savina to get herself out of the somber psyche she put herself in for her role in American Beauty. Birch, Whalin, and Kristen Wilson were cast before the start of principal photography.

Mark Leahy, a producer who was involved in the writing for a year and a half working on revisions of Solomon, Cartwright and Lilien's original script that were mostly rejected, was the one who conceived the cast being as ethnically diverse as possible; as he explained, "I thought this film had (and has) a chance to really be something special, and knowing that I hated the thought of a bunch of kids watching a great story in another world-where there are only white people." Leahy originally wrote the elf Liana (later named Norda) to be a black elf, but after contention from his peers, he changed her race to Asian; she was a black elf in the final cut. Leahy wrote what would become Snails as an African-American half-orc in his versions, although this was considered poor taste by his colleagues. He also wrote all members of the mage empire to be Asians.

Wilson, after reading the script, wanted to play Norda specifically due to the character's enigma; as she elaborated, "her position within the royal court world....the power that she has, certainly psychologically ..and she's a mystic...and then she's this incredible warrior. And she doesn't really let on too much.. but you can look in her eyes.. and you can see that she's not somebody to be trifled with." In fact, she was so committed to being cast as the elf that when calling the casting director, Wilson demanded to meet Solomon in person and tell him, "I'm Norda." The meeting happened, with Solomon and the other producers agreeing with Wilson. The director claimed to have cast Wilson as Norda for the same reasons she liked the character: "She's serious and mysterious and very, very cool [...] But when you look at her she doesn't look like some sort of prosthetic elf, she looks like she's another race. When you see her in the film, she's got these wild eyes, this wild exotic look, and she looks like a Dark Elf, which is great, because it's what she's supposed to be."

Lee Arenberg and Irons joined during filming, with Irons the last actor to get on board; he did so through the connection of Silver, who previously worked with him on Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). He initially rejected the opportunity as he was overseeing the renovation of a Ballydehob castle he purchased named Kilcoe. However, Silver then sent a package to Irons made for him by Solomon, which included the script and sketches of the look of the film; this plus his desire to try out a commercial fantasy production and Solomon's decade-long tenacity to get the screenplay produced made Irons get on board during filming on July 14, 1999.

The trickiest characters to cast were Elwood and Savina. As Solomon explained the dwarf, "The way I saw the D&D; dwarf was not like a hobbit, they're sort of in-between a human and a hobbit. They're smaller than an elf, too, so it was hard finding somebody with the height requirements, but also somebody who's going to be bulky like a dwarf as well." Arenberg was chosen to portray Elwood, although before he was cast American Job (1996) star Charlie Smith was a contender for the role. The producers originally look for an actor under five feet, but Arenberg went in the audition room and told them, "I have a few more inches but a foot more talent than the other short people." When looking for the empress Savina, according to Solomon, "that was one of the toughest characters to cast because I was looking to find somebody that young to play the role, because that's what that character called for, but I also needed somebody with a depth to her and understanding that's beyond her years."

Promotion and release[]

Production, release and plot information about the film, as well as original game creator Dave Arneson's time on set, were all discussed at the August 1999 Gen Con seminar "History of Roleplaying Games," hosted by Boucher and Arneson. Role-playing supplements of the film were also announced in development at the same convention. The film's official website went online in September 1999. Another unofficial website of information about the project, Dndmovie.com, run by Donald C. Whetsell, went online in November 1999, garnering more than 1.5 million hits by August 2000 and "unusual levels of press and consumer interest," claimed a New Line Cinema press release. On February 10, 2000, DnDmovie posted two photographs: a screenshot of the meeting between the mages, and a behind-the-scenes photo of Robert Miano waiting on a chair to act in a scene. On May 19, 2000, it revealed a teaser poster.

When principal photography finished, the release date was planned at the earliest to be August 2000, which would coincide with the publication of the third edition of the game, or Halloween 2000 at the latest if post-production went on longer than expected.

The trailer was presented at the 2000 Dragon Con event, where Whalin and Solomon was also at the event to discuss the film.

On August 14, 2000, New Line Cinema, a distributor with prior success in genre films and game adaptations like Mortal Kombat (1995), bought the American distribution rights of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as option rights for a prequel and sequel and television syndication rights, for $5 million. New Line set the domestic release date sometime near the end of the year; the producers originally wanted the release to be in the spring or summer of 2001 to open up more time for setting up licensing and tie-in deals, but none of Warner Bros' divisions agreed to it. Ain't It Cool News writer Harry suggests New Line made the deal to excite the fantasy film fanbase into a much larger production of the genre, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). International sales rights were held by J&M Entertainment.

Merchandise[]

Book[]

Neal Barrett Jr. wrote the novel Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie, based on the film.

Roleplaying game[]

Wizards of the Coast released a Fast-Play Game based on the movie called "The Sewers of Sumdall". It is a DVD-ROM feature on the DVD as a printable PDF file.