Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was actually pretty great, and that came as a surprise to those of us still processing memories of the appalling 2000 movie. Now, on the back of its commercial and critical success, directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are already thinking about the next one.
“We would absolutely love to continue to tell stories in this world,” Daley told Polygon in a recent interview, “We think it’s absolutely ripe with potential”. In particular, the pair say they’re excited by the possibility of introducing other characters, monsters, and locations from the D&D canon into the film series.
Goldstein said that they picked the Forgotten Realms for Honor Among Thieves “partly because it’s kind of a recognizable medieval setting,” but that there are “so many worlds within D&D that we could explore”. Does that mean we might venture into Planescape, and see Torment’s Nameless One pop his scarred head up in Daley and Goldstein’s next joint? Almost certainly not, but I’m going to believe it anyway until reality intrudes.
It might mean you see good old Drizzt Do’Urden sooner rather than later, though. Daley said they played around with the idea of a Drizzt cameo during the development of Honor Among Thieves, but “the general consensus was to not go there yet”. But he pointed out that Drizzt is “a popular character in the world, and one who could be exciting to explore”. Sounds like a concrete ‘maybe’ to me, and I know there are plenty of people out there who’d go ga-ga at a Drizzt film appearance.
I have to hope Daley and Goldstein have enough respect for the series to follow the precedent set by Baldur’s Gate, and Drizzt’s appearance in a sequel would end with the main cast beating him to death and stealing his swords.
But while the pair of directors are tossing around ideas for a hypothetical sequel, they seem to have their hearts set on one thing. “I think if we were lucky enough to do another one of these, we would want to see our characters level up,” said Daley. Specifically, the pair point out that Chris Pine’s character—a bard—never uses spells in Honor Among Thieves. So a sequel could see him level up and start flinging a bit of magic about.
I have to think that Wizards of the Coast is pleased as punch with the performance of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and will probably be pretty amenable to its directors’ pitches for a sequel. So expect some familiar D&D faces in future, and join me in praying that—if nothing else—they try to painstakingly recreate this scene at some point.
There’s a new Dungeons & Dragons in theaters, but it’s no match for the Dungeons & Dragons from 2000, with the worst deleted scene ever put on a DVD pic.twitter.com/Madg8QbZk8March 30, 2023