Wonder Woman and Star Trek star Chris Pine is to play the lead in Paramount Studio’s new Dungeons and Dragons movie. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have been attached to direct. Their credits include Game Night and Spider Man: Homecoming.  We also understand that Justice League actor Joe Manganiello is attached to the project in some way, but it is unclear as to how.  The movie is expected to come out in May 2022.

Paramount will be working with eOne, the company that handles this sort of thing for toy and game manufacturer Hasbro, the current owners of Dungeons and Dragons. The feature has been in development for a very long time and they have been multiple attempts to bring the vast and complicated world of Dungeons and Dragons to the silver screen since the 80s. It’s creator, Gary Gygax, famously failed to get a movie made and the least said about 2000’s low budget fantasy movie of the same name the better.

The tabletop game has enjoyed a huge revival in recent years thanks to shows such as Critical Role, Questing Time and High Rollers, as well as the game’s Fifth Edition, which is a far more accessible and inclusive rules-set. One of the challenges any Dungeons and Dragons movie will face is exactly which story to tell. The game has been around since 1974 and has accrued a whole library’s worth of lore and stories. Add to this the fact that the game itself is all about making up your own adventures and it becomes quite clear why it’s taken so long to develop a script that can be truly described as Dungeons and Dragons.

Time will tell if this new movie will take the fantasy franchise into a bold new direction or if we will finally get to see D&D’s famous setting The Forgotten Realms and heroes such as Minsc, Boo, Drizzt Do’Urden, Arkhan The Cruel and Elminster on the cinema screen.