Fans of the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) are spoiled with good media. With quality “actual play” shows/podcasts like Critical Role or Dimension 20 (which recently sold out Madison Square Garden for their live show, Gauntlet at the Garden), and video games like the 2023 Game of the Year winner Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s great content out there that doesn’t involve playing the game yourself. And if you do play the game, there are over 30 official adventures for 5th edition D&D, and infinitely more unofficial adventures. There’s even hundreds of books, comics, and Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern, a stage production.
Despite this, Wizards of the Coast (owners and publishers of D&D) have barely dipped their toes into putting D&D on the silver screen. There was a series of 3 D&D movies released from 2000-2012, and they were all of highly dubious quality, and not turning a profit. But in 2023, a real, big budget D&D movie was finally released. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, written by Michael Gilio, and produced by Paramount Pictures, Hasbro, and Entertainment One (now Lionsgate), with a budget of 150 million dollars, should have done exceptionally well. However, it only made 208.2 million dollars at the box office, landing it solidly as a box office disappointment, despite turning a profit.
Honor Among Thieves follows the story of human bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and Uthgardt human barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), on their journey to recover Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) after a heist gone wrong that ended in the pair’s imprisonment in the wintry wasteland of Icewind Dale. On their quest, they join up with former member of their party, the half-elf wild magic sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and a tiefling druid Doric (Sophia Lillis). They also temporarily work with the Thayan human paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page). The antagonists are the con artist human rogue Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) who is taking care of Kira, and his partner Sofina (Daisy Head), a Red Wizard of Thay. Forge has conned himself, with the help of Sofina, into becoming the Lord of Neverwinter, one of the largest cities on Faerûn (where many D&D adventures are set).
The thing that really appeals to me about Honor Among Thieves is that watching it feels a lot like how an actual, in person game of D&D feels. Instead of being an epic fantasy quest like Lord of the Rings, it’s a heist comedy reminiscent of a Marvel movie, which is much more accurate to how (most) D&D games are actually played. Not only that, but the movie was clearly written by people who actually know the game, as it has many references to the game that actually make sense. For example, Holga distracts a guard by remarking how his axe was crafted by Ghelryn Foehammer. While this is basically a one-off line in the movie, it makes sense that she knows about this because Ghelryn Foehammer is a real D&D character that lives in Triboar, and she knows Triboar because Simon lives there. Or, at one point, Simon says,”[Sofina’s] spells are on another level). Obviously this is just a common expression, but it’s also a clever reference to legitimate D&D game mechanics. Sofina is casting high level spells like Time Stop (9th level spell slot) while Simon is showing off by casting Prestidigitation (just a cantrip, albeit a very good one). Speaking of magic, the movie does a great job depicting casting spells, with characters using verbal and somatic components to cast spells, or using magic items. The movie even at times differentiates between PCs and NPCs, with the main party clearly all being PCs while someone like Xenk is an NPC. For example, Xenk decides to leave the party to complete their quest alone, even though it would most likely be guaranteed to succeed with him carrying them, and then walks away in a perfectly straight line, even walking over boulders. (An illusion of) Edgin does a distracting song, that causes all the guard NPCs in the vicinity to walk right up to him and listen, ignoring their surroundings entirely.
It’s those details that take this movie from a decent fantasy romp into a sincere love letter to D&D. Plus, Honor Among Thieves does a good job with the lore, and even shows off many classic D&D fauna like axebeaks, displacer beasts, mimics, owlbears, intellect devourers, and, of course, dragons.
Yet despite the positive audience reception, and probably more demand than ever, it’s unlikely that we will see another big budget D&D film again, since Honor Among Thieves barely turned a profit. Which is crazy to me, because D&D is the perfect setting for film or even TV, with unending lore to build off and a huge audience. I guess I’ll just have to continue enjoying Dimension 20.
