Dungeons and Dragons

Making movies is a roll of the 12-sided dice.

Paramount has announced its scheduled Allspark Pictures films up to 2021.

It’s been a long week — for you, me, ScreenCrush, America, and Earth. It’s nice to be able to take a moment on Friday to enjoy some more uplifting news, and today has happily obliged us with the announcement that Joe Manganiello went right ahead and wrote a Dungeons & Dragons screenplay. The man I assume must be the most ripped D&D nerd on the planet recently made a guest appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he informed host Josh Horowitz that he had co-authored a script based on the popular table-top roleplaying game with a “playwright friend from Carnegie Mellon” last year. Somewhere in the great dork beyond, Gary Gygax is looking down on Manganiello and smiling.

Ansel Elgort may be moving from YA sci-fi to fantasy role-playing games.

The last big screen adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons didn’t turn out so great — in fact, it was pretty terrible. So it shouldn’t take much to make a better Dungeons and Dragons movie, but thankfully Warner Bros. doesn’t appear to be interested in just delivering the bare minimum, as they’ve officially tapped Goosebumps director Rob Letterman to helm a new adaptation of the prolific table top RPG.

You know what would be a vast improvement over that other Dungeons and Dragons movie that you probably (rightfully) forgot? The immediate response is “anything,” of course, but also: fun. You know what was fun? Last year’s Goosebumps movie, which managed to take the vast possibilities of R.L. Stine’s books and transform them into an entertaining movie for fans both old and new (abundance of CGI notwithstanding). It would appear that Warner Bros. and Hasbro agree, as the studios are reportedly eyeing Goosebumps director Rob Letterman to take on their risky Dungeons and Dragons project.

FOX’s Futurama famously traded in nerdy math and science gags, but did you know multiple writers had actual PhDs and Harvard diplomas, even creating a real-life proof for one episode? Or that Simpsons creator Matt Groening nearly pulled the plug over FOX’s nerves about Bender? Set your cryo-tubes for the 31st century, as the 32nd episode of ‘You Think You Know TV?’ blasts off with the Planet Express crew for some sci-fi facts from Futurama.

Now that the news that a new Dungeons & Dragons movie is in the works has hit the internet, everyone involved in this film has one job and one job only – to not remind you of the horrible Dungeons & Dragons movie that was made 15 years ago. Just look at the image at the top of this article. Remember that this exists. Remember the pain.

When New Line tried to bring 'Dungeons and Dragons' to the big screen in 2000, it was coming a year after 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' and a year before 'The Lord of the Rings,' and was done on a budget. Basically, it came at the right time and place to be totally forgotten and dismissed. But now, according to Warner Brothers, the time couldn't be more right for a reboot.