Like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-director Jonathan Goldstein said, “no one has done (a film adaptation of the game) justice.” But on Friday night when it came to the latest big screen take, Goldstein, his co-director John Francis Daley, Paramount, eOne did as the film received a rock concert reception on the opening night of SXSW.
When it comes to the fantasy genre that includes Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings, Goldstein, “there’s not a lot of laughs and there’s not a lot of fun, and that’s what we hoped we did with this movie.”
The filmmakers arrived at Austin’s Paramount Theater with the main cast, without Hugh Grant, including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith and Daisy Head.
Paramount had great luck here at SXSW with 2018s Quiet Place, which went on to open to $50.2 million at the box office after its SXSW premiere (it finished at $188M domestic, and close to $341M worldwide), as did last year’s Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum film. The Lost City, which was part of the reactivation of the adult audience at cinemas post-Covid. It debuted to $30.4M, and has earned over $105M domestically, and $193M worldwide.
As one fan at the microphone put it tonight after the roller coaster ride, “I was left in tears at the end.”
Daley, who entered the role play when he acted Freaks and Geeks, said that the plot to the screenplay, which he wrote with Goldstein and Michael Gilio, created “different characters with advantages and disadvantages” much like the game, which “led to what ended up being our script.”
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Jeremy Latcham, who produced the film, added that it was also necessary to “call on people who have played their whole lives and people who have never played before.”
To receive an extremely loud response from the Most important Theater here was Page when the Bridgerton star came to the line of listeners asking questions to take a photo with a passionate female fan.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is part of a huge weekend for Paramount. It has the number 1 movie in Scream VI which is posting a record franchise opening of $42M, and the Melrose Avenue studio is headed to the Oscars on Sunday with nine nominations including one for Best Picture with Top Gun: Maverick.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves opens in theaters March 31.