Joe Manganiello's Quest To Make The D&D Movie We Deserve Joe Manganiello has been fighting to
make a decent D&D movie for years and
there’s no better time for this so I
talked to him about what his vision of
the great indie cinematic experience is
superhero movies fail when they’re about
superheroes superhero movies succeed
when they’re about people the creators
of all things fantasy and comic books
were so well read on mythology and they
understand that the Greeks and Romans
made their gods humans so that we could
talk about ourselves and in a way that’s
where fantasy really rules Dragonlance
works because at its heart it’s a soap
opera with love triangles and these
relationships and these two brothers
with this incredibly codependent
relationship and and those are things
that those are things that people
understand and you don’t need to
understand the CR rating of a zombie
t-rex to understand what it’s like to
pine after someone who doesn’t love you
back so you know Dragonlance works
because and those books are so beloved
and there were New York Times
bestsellers because people understand
those human emotions it’s just set
within this world so who doesn’t want to
see a story about genuine humanity and
human feeling and this this emotional
roller coaster ride oh and there’s
there’s people riding around on top of
dragons fighting each other breathing
lightning and fire like come on I mean
it’s just a it’s a no-brainer to me and
that’s why I think that’s where I think
those stories succeed and that’s you
know I want to make a movie that my wife
wants to go see and that’s exactly what
happened after we did our table read my
wife turning me inside
this is great like I have no idea that’s
the point
and I think that’s
some of what I feel like my I don’t know
I don’t think my greater purpose now but
but I think that being a lifelong fan
and being in the position that I am you
know I I want people to see it the way
that I do which are just they’re just
these amazing fantasy stories
why wouldn’t a fan of Game of Thrones or
a fan of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit
why wouldn’t they love this – yeah I
mean I just I care about it and I also
think that in today’s day and age you
know the Lord of the Rings Return of the
King won Best Picture and Game of
Thrones crushes at the Emmys and Golden
Globes every single year so you know my
wife asked me you know what is that
what’s what’s done is drives I say it’s
implore to the Rings it’s that show we
love and watch every Sunday night like
the mainstream knows this genre and that
genre is king but there’s still a lot of
questions what is that game and to me
that game is a library full of 40 years
worth of some of the greatest creative
minds that have ever lived dumping their
brains out into these adventures these
characters these these incredible
fantasy stories that to this day remain
on a shelf collecting dust unused and
there have been attempts at Dungeons and
Dragons films which I think we all want
to forget about or to kind of that
didn’t count one more false move might
mean that those stories stay on the
Shelf forever and I don’t want to I
don’t want to live in a world where that
where that happens when the studio
started seeing the footage from Magic
Mike – they started asking me what do
you want to do next like we want to do
another movie with you what do you want
I said would you guys have the rights to
Dundas and Dragons right and they said
yeah and I said so how’s that comment
and I said not very good we can’t we
can’t figure out the story tonight I
said well here’s what I think the story
should be and they agreed the rights
were going to lapse and what’s long
story but I wound up getting together
with an old playwright friend of mine
from Carnegie Mellon and in five weeks
we banged out the script and had a table
read for it and
came back to the studio and the studio
said look you know the rights are going
to lapse and we’re going to move them
but you know you should pursue this one
way or the other and and so that’s the
phase where at the time that Nathan
that’s how I met the Wizards of the
coast I’m a passionate fan who is also
someone you know who’s grown up in the
entertainment industry and just wants to
see it done right not only for the fans
but for the people who are fans you know
and and sort of to to show people that
the DND community knows that these
stories aren’t just for people hanging
out and in their parents basements
playing rolling dice they’re for
everybody and there’s these they’re
these incredible stories to be told and
it’s just such a such a rich landscape
to draw from and oh my god like I
wouldn’t we want to dump out all of Gary
Gygax s stories and margaret weis and
tracy hickman stories and our Salvatore
stories like they’re all they’re all
mined already they’re just they’re ready
to go and we live in an era where where
I think people are ready for it
you
#dungeonlife https://t.co/SP0k5Hd8qm @thisdungeonlife— Todd Kenreck (@ToddKenreck) June 20, 2017