With a new trailer dropping for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, IGN sat down with with the writer-directors of the film, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, to learn all manner of D&D trivia, behind-the-scenes tidbits, and secrets hidden in the new footage. You can hear them commentate over the trailer in real time by watching the breakdown video, or keep scrolling to read what they had to say.
Creating a D&D Movie for Everyone
Before diving into the details of the trailer, the Game Night filmmakers shared their philosophy on how they approached making this movie.
It goes without saying that the table-top roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons is a great many things to a great many people, and it may involve everything from manticores and mind flayers to runes and rings, but at its core, it’s a means for telling a story. For Daley and Goldstein, that meant finding a central theme to base it on.
“This film is about found family,” Daley said. “Despite obvious differences, what keeps them together is this desire to fix something that's much bigger than themselves. And then, what ultimately keeps them together is this newfound affinity that they end up having for one another.”
While the film is set in the world of D&D and features familiar lore, it’s not an adaptation of any pre-existing D&D story, but rather a new tale that aims to capture the spirit of playing a game of D&D. The idea was to make a movie filled with things D&D fans would appreciate yet tell a story that a newcomer could enjoy just as much.
“The monsters, the creatures, the magic, the locations, all of that you will see portrayed. But we're not trying to bog you down if you don't know anything about D&D or if you've never played, as well. First and foremost, we wanted this to be a big fun adventure that felt a little bit different than the ones that you're used to seeing,” Daley explained.
Now, here’s their frame-by-frame breakdown of the second trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Castle Never on the Horizon
Goldstein: We begin in Neverwinter, which is one of the biggest cities in the Forgotten Realms in Dungeons & Dragons. That's Castle Never. And we wanted to create a city that felt real and vibrant, full of activity, but also a mix of grungy and beautiful.
Daley: We really wanted to explore the multiple eras that this city was built in. Any old city that you see in Europe, it feels lived and it feels like it's got centuries of history behind it. And so, it was really important to us to find something that felt authentic but also different from anything you've seen in our world.
Meet Holga and Edgin
Daley: This scene really showcases the relationship between Holga, played by Michelle Rodriguez, and Edgin, played by Chris Pine. And while she's ready to take on 10 foes at once, Edgin really prefers to avoid getting his hands dirty. So, it's a fun dynamic that we get to see right off the bat.
Goldstein: A lot of these exterior scenes around Neverwinter, we shot on our back lot in Belfast, Northern Ireland, some of which was from the Game of Thrones, King's Landing backlot. Now, if you remember that series ended with a dragon destroying most of the city, so there wasn't that much left to work with, so we had to rebuild much of it, but it was fun to be in there in their world and make it our own.
Daley: We also get a glimpse here in this scene of Holga's brutally effective fighting style. It was important to us for the fighting throughout this whole movie to be portrayed in a way where you can actually see what's going on. So, we tried to avoid quick cuts and long lenses. Jackie Chan style of fighting was really the mandate when we approached all of these combat sequences. We had this team of these grizzled Bulgarian stuntmen led by Brad Martin, who is our second unit director and stunt coordinator, who you can see really put their blood, sweat and tears on camera here.
Goldstein: So, Edgin and Haga have returned to Neverwinter to try to reunite with someone, and they've basically been cast out, and orders have been given to execute them. And that's about to happen here. You get a glimpse here of the loot that Edgin carries because he is a Bard and his main weapon is the lute, which is an unlikely kind of weapon for a fantasy film, but it's a big part of D&D. And you'll see throughout the movie, he gets to use it in very interesting ways.
The Mysterious Magic Horn
Daley: Here you see this character of who we know very little about holding the mighty MacGuffin, which we don't want to give too much information about here, but it comes into play very prominently in this film. And actually, in this scene, in this one shot, there are actually a few Easter eggs in the background that if you were savvy to the world of D&D, you might find interesting.
The Big Bad Evil Guy
Daley: We get a glimpse there of Szass Tam, who is the leader of Thay. He's a necromantic lich, and not a nice guy.
Daley: This character poses a huge potential threat to not only our characters but the world that they live in. And it was crucial to us that the stakes we introduced are not just big and world-threatening but also incredibly personal, and we can't give too much away, but each of our characters are joining this fight for their own particular reasons, and we wanted those to be just as vital as the bigger picture threat.
Goldstein: Szass Tam is someone that will be recognized by longtime players. He's a character who comes from the lore. He's one of the few that we plucked from the game. He's super creepy, and he's very powerful, and there's a lot of mystery about him.
Daley: While we only get glimpses of him here, what we learn about him is that he's incredibly charming and charismatic, and has a way with being able to persuade his underlings to do his bidding in a way that is unique to the character.
Goldstein: We portray him as a bit of a cult leader.
Xenk Yendar, Very Serious Paladin
Daley: This character that we see here is Xenk Yendar, played by Rege-Jean Page. He's a Paladin with this traumatic past. He's an adept fighter. He's incredibly serious and in many ways, the antithesis of the rest of our group of thieves. He's got zero sense of humor and feels like he was plucked out of another fantasy film that obviously creates a delicious rift between him and Chris Pine's character who is equal parts threatened and baffled by him.
Goldstein: If you saw our last movie Game Night, Xenk is sort of the Gary, the Jesse Plemons of this movie. We always find it funny when someone's taking things very seriously and has no sense of humor at all.
Simon Really Needs to Level Up
Goldstein: This is Justice Smith playing a character Simon, and he is a sorcerer, and he comes from a long line of very famous and very successful wizards and sorcerers, and there's a lot of pressure on him to be good at what he does. At the beginning of the movie when we meet him, he is not exactly a great sorcerer. We wanted to reflect the fun you get in playing and setting up your characters. You roll dice, sometimes you get a high number, which means you're very good at something, but often you get a low number. Simon didn't get a great number, but he does level up over the movie.
Daley: Simon has this thing called wild magic, which gives him this real unpredictability in the spells that he casts. So, very often the spell he's trying to cast isn't the one that comes to fruition, and that is something that is in many ways as synonymous with what he's dealing with himself. He has very little control over his power, but there is something deeply powerful within him that he needs to tap into.
Doric's Shapeshifting Is Pretty Wild
Daley: This is Sophia Lillis playing Doric, who is our tiefling druid. We knew we needed a well-rounded out group, and so, each member of our ensemble has their own skills and setbacks and so, she's really skilled at being able to change into different animals. She's a wild shape, and so, it gives her this incredible unique ability that also allows her to slip into cracks and crevices and places that normal sized people can't. So, it's something that we definitely showcase a lot throughout this film.
Now Entering the Underdark
Goldstein: The orifice here is one entrance to the Underdark, which is a notorious cavernous world that exists in Dungeons & Dragons. And our team heads down there in search of this other magical item they need.
Daley: We built these massive sets to bring the Underdark to life. Our production designer, Ray Chan was instrumental in conceiving what these places could look like. Notably, the area our characters are trying to get to is this hanging city of ruins that are suspended from these massive chain links. And so, between our incredible crew of production designers and artists, we were able to build this place and then extend it using visual effects where we see this massive lava flows and this huge cavernous space.
Behold Neverwinter Arena
Daley: This is a good glimpse at the Neverwinter arena, which is the coliseum that sits in the city of Neverwinter, just on the Sword Coast, and it's where the Highsun Games took place long ago before Lord Neverember outlawed them.
Goldstein: These statues are actually two figures from the history of Neverwinter. Every detail, we really tried to pay attention to things that super fans would recognize, but that wouldn't throw off people who don't care.
An Axe as Fiery as Its Wielder
Goldstein: We wanted to have distinctive weapons for all our characters, things that could be memorable and unique to our movie. And Holga's axe, about two-thirds of the way through the movie, lands in this molten steel and turns into a different weapon entirely.
Daley: I think in all role-playing games, upgrades and new weapons and collecting and looting is essential. But I think in D&D, it really gives you license to push the envelope in terms of how unique and bizarre those weapons and items are.
Goldstein: Super badass, but this is one of the few things that isn't being lit by magic.
Daley: We do have a sword that Xenk wields that he uses his Divine Radiance to bring to life. Xenk also has a pretty cool sword, which you see a glimpse of in this. It's called a dagger-sword, and it has a dagger inside the main blade that he can use separately. So, it's two killing weapons in one.
Taking on Sofina
Goldstein: This is a battle our team has with Sofina, played by Daisy Head. This is in the main plaza in Neverwinter, which is also Belfast, and that stone dragon up there, we actually built a version of it and then it becomes a digital asset for this battle.
Daley: But that said, I think we used a lot of the practical components of that dragon as well. Through the magic of trailers, we're seeing actually multiple moments in this film portrayed as one. So, that first spell where she's summoning these meteors then becomes what another spell that she does that animates this dragon to life and one that they have to contend with now.
Goldstein: It was very important to me and John to incorporate practical effects into this. Meaning things that were actually there on set and built prosthetics and monsters. We didn't want to just rely on green screens and VFX.
A Rogue By Any Other Name Would Be Just as Duplicitous
Daley: Here we have Hugh Grant, who is a delightful performer that we enjoyed working with immensely. He plays a rogue, Forge Fitzwilliam, who is on board with our game when they're first a band of thieves, and then has plans of his own, but I won't get into it much more than that.
Goldstein: This isn't the kind of movie that you typically expect to see Hugh Grant in, which is why it was so exciting to get him. I mean, we wrote the part for him and he read the script and he loved it and came aboard, which was a real vote of confidence for us.
Daley: If he were to be classed in a game, he would be definitely a rogue. He's cunning and conniving and clever and slightly evil, but also there is a real charm to him. I think that makes you keep coming back for more.
There Will Be Dungeon Crawling
Daley: Here we have this maze that we devised that sits within the Neverwinter arena where our characters are forced to navigate it. And what was fun about this is that it is very much an allusion to the grid-style format of many dungeons that people play through when they're in a campaign.
Goldstein: John and I were both players of D&D over the years. I did it when I was younger. John has played more recently. A labyrinth is the thing you encounter quite a bit in campaigns and we wanted to find a fun way to put our characters into a deadly maze situation.
Daley: This is one of our versions of a dungeon basically because we have multiple dungeon crawls within this film, and that doesn't necessarily mean it's something that's underground and bleak.
Signature D&D Monsters
Goldstein: Well, there you got two of the finest D&D creatures and that is a gelatinous cube and a displacer beast.
Daley: They're jumping into a gelatinous cube to escape a displacer beast. And many would say that's a bad idea. You sustain more damage from within a gelatinous cube than you would from being an attack by a displacer beast. But don't you worry, we thought about a lot of this and they've got a plan.
Get Ready to Rumble
Goldstein: Here we are back in the Underdark where Xenk is facing down Dralas, who's an assassin sent to kill him and our other teammates. And this is a great example of some of Ray Chan's design work. You see these terracotta gnomes that are evocative of China with the terracotta soldiers.
Daley: We also have two very unique weapons that they're each wielding. Xenk’s is illuminated by Divine Radiance and he has a dagger-sword that detaches, so that he can fight multiple foes at the same time. We also see Dralas wielding the Green-Flame Blade, which if you are quite familiar with the game and spells, you might know what that is as well.
Watch Your Fingers
Daley: Here we have a mimic, which is another very popular monster in the game of D&D and one that is so unique in the fantasy world to D&D. You are not going to see this in any other fantasy film, and we just love how both treacherous and absurd it is.
Goldstein: Fun thing about that sequence was the tongue was a real prosthetic that was on set and the rest of the mimic inside was digital effect. But we wanted to be able to really wrap something around Michelle's leg so she could fight it off.
Addressing the Owlbear Controversy
Daley: Here we have the owlbear, which is another iconic monster in Dungeons & Dragons, and it is actually Doric, wild shaping into one as from her Druid self, and it was really exciting to see this thing come to life. We went through so many iterations because these owlbears, when you're looking at an illustration in a D&D book, you can get away with a lot in terms of the angles and how it lumbers and how it looks. But when you're actually seeing it in a three-dimensional space, it changes how you perceive what it should look like in the sort of most aesthetically pleasing but also formidable creature that you can make.
Goldstein: We're aware that there was a certain amount of controversy that emerged in the D&D fan community after the first trailer showed our Druid wild-shaping into an owlbear. And it was something we discussed a great deal when we were writing it. We know that technically, it's not permissible, but we subscribe to the “Rule of Cool.” And we felt that if we, as the dungeon masters of this movie, would let our players do this, then why should we deprive the audience of something that's as cool and fun as this?
Family Matters
Daley: Edgin is alluding here to losing everything that ever mattered to him, and we're seeing him in simpler, quieter times with his family. So, you can imagine what might have been lost, but I won't give too much away beyond that.
Planeswalking
Daley: There are multiple planes that you can visit within the game of Dungeons & Dragons. So we thought this would be a really fun one to portray, and without giving anything else away, what D&D gave us license to do is really warp our perception of reality and what is real, and any one plane is no less real than the other, but it does look bizarre to our human eyes.
Meaty Mage Hand
Daley: Here we've got two different spells, Sofina wielding Mage Hand fighting down Simon's Earthen Hand, which is another very unique to D&D something that we knew we wanted to see on film because of how different it is, and how we get to play with this arm wrestle in the fantasy space.
Goldstein: [Mage Hand is] a spectral floating hand. We wanted it to be evocative of her color scheme but also horrific and it's like a meat hand.
Daley: Yeah, it's interesting. I think every wizard's mage hand would probably look different and be specific to them and their personality and their aesthetic. And so this, because she is necromantic, this felt like a good fit.
Party Members, Assemble!
Goldstein: This is a moment when our team finally gels as a team really coming together using all of their skills against the villain. And that's a great moment in any D&D campaign where the strengths of each character is brought to bear.
Daley: We also wanted to showcase it in a fun roundy-round “oner” that is quintessentially turn-based, if you look at each of their actions.
That’s One Chonky Dragon
Goldstein: This is Embershard, our version of Embershard, who is a dragon that exists in the lore in our version. As you can see, he's gotten a little chunky.
Daley: Embershad in the lore is known as being a glutton. And so, we really wanted to lean into that idea for one of our dragons. We wanted each of our dragons to be special in their own right because people know what dragons look like. They've seen a lot of them in the fantasy world, and so, we wanted to put our own unique flavor in that.
Goldstein: In some ways this dragon sequence is a good example of the tone that we tried to balance through the whole movie, which is never undermining what's at stake. People's lives are at risk and people die, but you're also hopefully laughing a lot of the time and that was the tight rope that we walked.
Daley: Since this is a film based on a very unique role playing game, it was imperative that we feel like we're in one and one of the best parts of D&D is how you can put your own original spin on the creatures that you thought that you were familiar with.
Someone Forgot to Check For Traps
Goldstein: This is our hanging city of Diyun, you can see, and this bridge that they need to get across, which Simon quickly triggers the destruction mechanism. And it's the joke we love in the actual film. As you see, there's a much longer lead up to the explosion. It forces them to solve this problem in a new way.
Daley: It's also very special to playing any good campaign of D&D where you're having to constantly pivot when plans go awry. So, in this last bit, we wanted to show how even the most well-laid plan can implode from a single misstep or bad roll of the die. The other thing that's so special to the game as it sits in the fantasy space is that it has a sense of humor. The most fun and engaging campaigns are the ones where we're laughing in one moment and crying in the next. We had to showcase that emotional fluidity even in the trailer. (That's right. I said emotional fluidity.) The humor here is we're never taking them out of the circumstances that our characters are in, but like most human beings, and I guess in this case halflings and tieflings, we often find funny in the tragic. It's what keeps us from going insane.
Goldstein: We're super excited to share this with the world. We've spent the last two and a half, three years creating this, and we're really excited and proud of it, and can't wait to share it with everybody.
The US release date for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is March 31, 2023.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-directors-reveal-secrets-from-the-new-trailer