The quest to bring the Dungeons & Dragons game franchise back to the big screen appears to have leveled up, as Warner Bros. Pictures has reportedly acquired Goosebumps director Rob Letterman to helm a long-delayed Dungeons & Dragon movie.
The film will feature a return to the world of monsters and mayhem inspired by the wildly popular role-playing game, and will be based on a script penned by The Conjuring 2 and Wrath of the Titans screenwriter David Leslie Johnson. The movie is expected to be a reboot of sorts, and not tied to the underperforming 2000 film of the same name, nor its sequels.
According to The Tracking Board, the studio is hoping to attract a “Vin Diesel type” actor for the lead role in the film. It’s uncertain whether Diesel himself has been approached, but given his self-professed love of Dungeons & Dragons — and the fact that his recent film, The Last Witch Hunter, was essentially his own version of a Dungeons & Dragons movie — the studio might be inclined to give him a call.
Prior to directing the Goosebumps movie, Letterman helmed the animated features Monsters vs Aliens and Shark Tale, as well as 2010’s live-action feature Gulliver’s Travels, starring Jack Black.
Among the producers on the film are Hasbro execs Brian Goldner and Stephen Davis, as well as Courtney Solomon, the director of the 2000 film. That film starred Jeremy Irons as a sinister tyrant who attempts to overthrow a medieval kingdom and is then thwarted by the efforts of sword- and sorcery-wielding characters played by Justin Whalin (Child’s Play 3) and Marlon Wayans (White Chicks). It spawned two direct-to-video sequels, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God and Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness.
Warner Bros. Pictures first announced plans to make another Dungeons & Dragons movie back in 2013, but the project has been at the center of a legal battle the last few years due to Hasbro owning the rights to the game franchise.
There’s no word on when production is expected to begin on the Dungeons & Dragons movie.
