D&D Movie: Michelle Rodriguez And Justice Smith Join The Cast
Two more brave souls have joined the lineup for the Dungeons & Dragons movie, making many wonder if it’s possible this movie might be… good?
Some surprising good news for the Dungeons & Dragons movie, due out with an ambitious release date of May 2022: two new cast members have officially signed on, joining Chris Pine to bring some serious star power to the movie with a little more than a year left to film. Michelle Rodriguez, whom you’ll recognize as Letty Ortiz from the Fast & the Furious franchise, as well as Justice Smith, who is the sidekick that Detective Pikachu deserves, have joined the D&D movie.
Which brings us to an interesting point. The D&D movie is slated for release in May of 2022, which is a year and three months out from press time. That’s not a ton of time to film a movie, especially one that’s sure to be CGI heavy, like D&D. For comparison’s sake, Thor Ragnarok took 19 months to finish. A lot will come down to how much previz is already in place. The movie has a directing team and a script from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, and if ever there was a team to make a D&D movie good… this is it.
Will the sixth time be the charm? It’s hard to say. Certainly CGI has come a long way than the halcyon days of 2000, and with star power like Rodriguez, Smith, and Pine, there’s certainly no arguing that the movie can be acted well. It might even be well written and well-directed, but at the end of the day can good everything be enough to overcome the innate horribleness of a D&D movie?
We’ve talked before about why a D&D movie is difficult to shoot, and how without having anything making it specifically “D&D” it becomes hard to identify what the point is in a D&D movie, and what makes it stand out from a generic fantasy movie.
But the way things are shaping up, it might be time to dust the layers of jaded cynicism from off the ol’ heart and dare to hope that this movie might actually turn out to be worth seeing. I’m not holding my breath, not yet. But with the latest news, I can at the very least think about it. In the meantime, let’s look at the potential roles Smith and Rodriguez might be playing:
Here’s a breakdown of all the characters mentioned above, along with how many scenes they’ll each play in, thanks to Fandomwire:
- Raven Hightower is one of the lead males as he is in 88 scenes. He has dark eyes, long hair, and a beard and he wears an oiled cloak, leather armor and wields a magic flamesword. He is an honorable man as he and his sister were once slaves but she died and he is still haunted by her passing.
- Hack Karroway is another lead male, having a gigantic 77 scenes, but he is a voice-over character. He is a former human turned Half-Dragon, now standing seven feet tall with a long tail and blood-red scales. He wears human armor and has a large bastard sword and can breathe fire. He’s intelligent and logical.
- Otivan Trickfoot is a strong support male with 51 scenes and he’s a gnome who wears magic rings. He is cunning and untrustworthy.
- Alyssa Steelsong is a strong support female with 41 scenes. She is the leader of the masked warriors and wields a mace. She is next in line to be the Lord Protector of the Triadic Knights after Palarandusk dies.
- Malanthius is a supporting male with 26 scenes. He is skinny, longhaired and young and he is a spellcaster.
- Razer Horlbar is a supporting male with 14 scenes. He is a handsome elf with jet-black skin and has pointed ears and long white hair. He is the leader of the cloaked men and is in charge of Damaia and The Beast.
- Damaia is a supporting female with 10 scenes. She is a Tiefling, a race descended from demons. She has horns, pointed teeth, and a long tail.
- The Beast is a supporting male with 9 scenes and he is a huge, cloaked man who wears an expressionless wooden mask.
- Bickety is a supporting male with 9 scenes, he is a human swordsman with a scar-ridden face and he is an adventurer.
- Zanril is a supporting male with 9 scenes. He is a bald warlock adventurer who explores the Demon Temples with Karroway and Hightower.
- Skeever is a supporting male with 7 scenes and he is a half-orc adventurer.
- Palarandusk is supporting male with only 3 scenes. He is an ancient gold dragon and Lord Protector of the Triadic Knights. He has cracked scales and dangling spines with catfish whiskers. He eats gemstones to stay alive.
What do you think? Could this movie be actually good?
