Warner Bros. Acquires "Dungeons and Dragons" Movie Rights

[Thundarr]

Actually, I rather have a live action D&D movie based on the cartoon. would be awesome to see Venger and Tiamat on the big screen. I don't care who they get to play Venger, but his voice has got to be Peter Cullen , like in the series.

Why not just have Peter Cullen put on the costume, wear the latex prosthetic make up, and play the role himself? He'd have to shave off the 'stache though.

 

[Thundarr]

Warner Bros./Legendary would handle this better. Hope it goes to them.

Well they did a really good job with Harry Potter. But at the same time they seem to constantly botch any comic book movie that isn't Batman or Superman. So it's kind of a toss up. I guess it depends on how committed they are to making a good movie.

 

[Thundarr]

yeah but those are a far cry from a big budget tentpole flick they're no doubt shooting for this time. I don't see it happening.

Actually those are both the same movie. I think Wrath Of The Dragon God is the American title and The Elemental Might is the European title.

Second, the story itself was fine. Like I said, it was just hampered by a too small budget.

Given the right budget for a proper production value, known actors, and a few minor changes to the script, it actually COULD be the big budget tentpole flick that they're shooting for.

For example, I would have given the character of Berek the surname "Freeborn", indicating that he was a descendant of Riddley from the first movie.

I would have included the scene where Berek finds his Vorpal Sword, which was cut from the original sequel because they didn't have the money to shoot it.

I would have included the characters of Nora and Elwood from the first film into the group, brought in as experts on Damodar's abilities and tactics.

I would have made Nim The Rogue a halfling, and cast Warwick Davis in the role.

I would have made the bandits who tried to stop the group from entering the dungeon hobgoblins or orcs rather than humans.

I would have dressed Lux The Barbarian in a fur bikini to make her look more . . . barbaric.

And I would have had the people who did the special effects in Jurassic Park and Dragonheart do the dragons.

 

[Victarion]

Should they have dragonfear ala Dragonlance?

 

[Thundarr]

Should they have dragonfear ala Dragonlance?

I don't think dragons really need magical fear powers. I mean, a giant flying reptile with teeth the size of swords, scales that are harder than steel, and large enough to swallow a grown man whole is frightening enough. Add to that the creatures breath weapon, capable of freezing you solid, roasting you alive, dissolving you into a puddle of goo, electricuting you, or gassing you to death (depending on the breed of Chromatic Dragon you're facing), a high inteligence, and an innate ability to cast spells that put many wizards to shame, and you're looking at something pretty damned intimidating.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Hasbro Sues to Stop Warner Bros. 'Dungeons and Dragons' Film (Exclusive)

Hasbro Inc. is not in the mood to play games.

On Monday, the toy company filed a lawsuit against producer Courtney Solomon's Sweetpea Entertainment, alleging that it has no right to make a new film that exploits its "Dungeons and Dragons" brand. Read the lawsuit here.

Solomon produced the 2000 film version of Dungeons and Dragons and is reportedly working with Warner Bros. on another Dungeons & Dragons movie. That film is based on Chainmail, a board game from Dungeons & Dragons designer Gary Gygax.

But Hasbro has also been reported to have licensed a Dungeons & Dragons reboot to Universal Studios. So the company and its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Sweetpea that seeks a declaration that it owns rights to the property and an injunction to stop the planned Warner Bros. film.

Warner Bros. is not a defendant in the lawsuit which also asserts false designation of origin, unfair competition and trademark infringement.

According to the complaint, Sweetpea acquired rights to the property by an agreement in 1994. As part of the agreement, Solomon's company got the right to do a sequel or prequel.

But the lawsuit states, "Sweetpea's claim of ownership of the theatrical motion picture rights in the Property is baseless because the Sequel Rights have reverted to Hasbro."

The complaint filed in California federal court goes onto say that an amendment to the 1994 contract provided that Sequel Rights would "revert on a rolling basis... on the earlier of (i) five (5) years from of (sic) the initial U.S. release or (ii) seven (7) years from final director's cut of the immediately prior picture."

Another provision dealt with the reversion of television rights to the project. Sweatpea produced two TV films including Wrath of the Dragon God for the SyFi Channel in 2005 and The Book of Vile Darkness last year.

"Despite initial plans to release the First TV Movie as a theatrical or non-theatrical sequel based upon the Picture, the production actually was released in the United States as a television motion picture," says the lawsuit. "Thus, the First TV Movie represented an exercise of the Television Rights and did not reset the Sequel Rights' five-year reversion clock."

Hasbro also cites the fact that Sweetpea paid $20,000 for the "Second TV Movie," an amount it says would have been much "greater... under the License for exercising the Sequel Rights" as well as explaining that this project "neither continued, contained, nor referred to any of the characters, storylines, settings or events from the Picture or the First TV Movie."

Now that Warner Bros. has reportedly gotten on board, Hasbro is looking to collect damages over the defendants "falsely claiming ownership of the Sequel Rights to WB."

Maura Wogan at Frankfurt Kurnit is the lead counsel for Hasbro in the case. Michael Weinsten at Lavely & Singer is local counsel who filed the complaint on Monday.

Solomon was unavailable for comment.

http://rewired.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/hasbro-sues-stop-warner-bros-522262

 

[Iceman]

Great!

 

[Octoberist]

Man it's not worth it.

 

[Thundarr]

Hasbro Sues to Stop Warner Bros. 'Dungeons and Dragons' Film (Exclusive)

Hasbro Inc. is not in the mood to play games.

On Monday, the toy company filed a lawsuit against producer Courtney Solomon's Sweetpea Entertainment, alleging that it has no right to make a new film that exploits its "Dungeons and Dragons" brand. Read the lawsuit here.

Solomon produced the 2000 film version of Dungeons and Dragons and is reportedly working with Warner Bros. on another Dungeons & Dragons movie. That film is based on Chainmail, a board game from Dungeons & Dragons designer Gary Gygax.

But Hasbro has also been reported to have licensed a Dungeons & Dragons reboot to Universal Studios. So the company and its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Sweetpea that seeks a declaration that it owns rights to the property and an injunction to stop the planned Warner Bros. film.

Warner Bros. is not a defendant in the lawsuit which also asserts false designation of origin, unfair competition and trademark infringement.

According to the complaint, Sweetpea acquired rights to the property by an agreement in 1994. As part of the agreement, Solomon's company got the right to do a sequel or prequel.

But the lawsuit states, "Sweetpea's claim of ownership of the theatrical motion picture rights in the Property is baseless because the Sequel Rights have reverted to Hasbro."

The complaint filed in California federal court goes onto say that an amendment to the 1994 contract provided that Sequel Rights would "revert on a rolling basis... on the earlier of (i) five (5) years from of (sic) the initial U.S. release or (ii) seven (7) years from final director's cut of the immediately prior picture."

Another provision dealt with the reversion of television rights to the project. Sweatpea produced two TV films including Wrath of the Dragon God for the SyFi Channel in 2005 and The Book of Vile Darkness last year.

"Despite initial plans to release the First TV Movie as a theatrical or non-theatrical sequel based upon the Picture, the production actually was released in the United States as a television motion picture," says the lawsuit. "Thus, the First TV Movie represented an exercise of the Television Rights and did not reset the Sequel Rights' five-year reversion clock."

Hasbro also cites the fact that Sweetpea paid $20,000 for the "Second TV Movie," an amount it says would have been much "greater... under the License for exercising the Sequel Rights" as well as explaining that this project "neither continued, contained, nor referred to any of the characters, storylines, settings or events from the Picture or the First TV Movie."

Now that Warner Bros. has reportedly gotten on board, Hasbro is looking to collect damages over the defendants "falsely claiming ownership of the Sequel Rights to WB."

Maura Wogan at Frankfurt Kurnit is the lead counsel for Hasbro in the case. Michael Weinsten at Lavely & Singer is local counsel who filed the complaint on Monday.

Solomon was unavailable for comment.

http://rewired.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/hasbro-sues-stop-warner-bros-522262

Ah, so that explains a lot. I thought Solomon might have had the sequel rights to his 2000 movie. I just didn't know the statute of limitations on when he got to exercise those rights. And it looks like Solomon shot himself in the foot by making the sequels Made For TV/Direct To DVD (in The States they were broadcast on TV first, then released on DVD, here in Canada they were only ever available on DVD). Had Wrath Of The Dragon God been released in theatres, even on a limited basis, it would have reset the clock on his sequel/prequel rights.

I'm kinda torn on this news. On the one hand, the first D&D movie in 2000 was pretty bad. Badly written, terribly directed, horribly cast (namely Marlon Wayans, Jeremy Irons, and the girl who played Nora The Elven Ranger, everyone else was okay), and used way more CGI than was necessary (Wrath Of The Dragon God was far superior and used much less CGI). However, it WAS very well PRODUCED (the CGI may have been overdone, but it looked pretty cool on screen). And when Solomon went from writing and directing to JUST producing, he came out with a far superior, if underfunded, product (ie: Wrath Of The Dragon God/The Elemental Might, whatever you want to call it). So as long as he's only producing and neither writing nor directing, he comes out with a pretty cool product.


However, I am kinda curious as to what Hasbro and Universal have planned for their D&D reboot. A live action adaptation of the Saturday morning cartoon? That will require a team up between Universal & Disney, but still . . . it could be cool. Maybe an adaptation of one of their novels? Homeland or Dragons Of Autumn Twilight perhaps? Maybe a completely original story involving the sample characters from the 3.5 Edition Player's Handbook: Lidda the Halfling Rogue, Krusk the Half-Orc Barbarian, Jozan the Human Cleric, Tordek the Dwarven Fighter, Soveliss the Elven Ranger, and Hennet the Tiefling Sorcerer (okay, the sample character is human not tiefling, I just thought I'd shake things up a bit).

Personally, I'm hoping for the first or the third option. Those two are the most difficult to screw up. For the cartoon, you would be making PG-13 rated material out of a G rated source. Thereby making it a more palatable story than the original cartoon and enjoyable by a wider audience. Some things would remain the same (character names, magic items, general storyline), while others will be drastically changed (more violent, less silly, possibly making the characters slightly older for more . . . adult relationships). With the sample characters from the Player's Handbook, the people who play the game will be familiar with the characters, but there is very little, if anything, published or produced about these characters. Thus the writers can take the character names, genders, and races, but take certain liberties with their personalities and relationships and such (kinda like how I changed the sorcerer from a human to a tiefling).

 

[halo10]

if it's NOT the based off the famed CBS animated cartoon series and all it's characters (Ranger, Magician,Thief,Barbarian, Eric,dungeon-master,Venger)... then i'm not interested.

We've done the game version based off that with the dreadfful 2000 version (featuring Marlon Wayans, Jeremy Irons) and all these other D&D films that just came along and just drowned that name down even more so.
Because the D&D name and films have been such horrible failures, i dunno if any interest in the animation version brought to live action film can even be generated into a box office hit.

i personally adored the animated version that i grew up on. It brought a different type and style of animation adventure to the viewing audience.
And i was elated when it finally came to DVD set.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Trial Ends; Will Warner Bros Or Universal Cast Magic Sequel Spell?

 

[Thundarr]

‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Trial Ends; Will Warner Bros Or Universal Cast Magic Sequel Spell?

Well that's SOME good news at least. Now we just gotta wait and see who the judge is in favor of.

I don't really know who to root for. Solomon really did a pretty piss poor job with his D&D movies, although they HAVE developed their own cult following (not unlike the games they were based on). And Hasbro DOES own the rights to the D&D game, without which there would be no movies.

I guess it all boils down to whether or not the judge decides that the movies and games are two separate properties, and ownership of one doesn't necessarily equal ownership of the other.

Personally, I DO kinda hope Hasbro wins, as I would like to see a more competent writer/director/producer get a shot at making a D&D movie.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

If Hasbro gets it there's at least a chance of a decent movie happening, whatever form that movie might take. With Solomon that won't ever happen.

 

[Thundarr]

If Hasbro gets it there's at least a chance of a decent movie happening, whatever form that movie might take. With Solomon that won't ever happen.

Very true (although Solomon's first D&D movie is a guilty pleasure of mine).

 

[Octoberist]

The project will always be bad schlock if Solomon's around when it there's endless opportunities with the franchise. Image if today, comic book movies were still in Batman & Robin/Captain America (1990) mode, where no one takes it seriously. That's where D&D is at, movie-wise.

Like how Paul WS Anderson and Uwe Boll kept the video game movie genre down, Solomon is a detriment to D&D.

 

[Thundarr]

The project will always be bad schlock if Solomon's around when it there's endless opportunities with the franchise. Image if today, comic book movies were still in Batman & Robin/Captain America (1990) mode, where no one takes it seriously. That's where D&D is at, movie-wise.

Like how Paul WS Anderson and Uwe Boll kept the video game movie genre down, Solomon is a detriment to D&D.

Good point. I've always wanted to see a more serious take on the D&D brand. Something along the lines of Peter Jackson's LOTR movies, or Schwarzenegger's 1982 Conan film. Even something a LITTLE light hearted, but still action packed and exciting, like The Pirates Of The Caribbean films.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what the judge says.