Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to make a movie based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, according to a report.
The studio has already made significant progress into the process of the film making using a script written by Wrath of the Titans screenwriter David Leslie Johnson, Deadline reports. "That script, Chainmail, was acquired last year as a free-standing project, based on an obscure game that was also hatched by D&D designer Gary Gygax before he and Dave Arneson launched D&D. It is being retro-fitted to fit the much bigger game creation," the report says.
The movie will be produced by The Lego Movie producer Roy Lee and Courtney Solomon. Alan Zeman is rumored to be executive producer for the movie. Solomon had previously directed and produced the 2000 Dungeons & Dragons feature that starred Jeremy Irons. The 2000 Dungeons and Dragons film was a critical and commercial failure.
Warner Bros. is reportedly treating this project as a big priority. "Given the heightened interest in sword, sorcery, chivalry and cool creatures within Warner Bros with the HBO series Game Of Thrones and the ongoing Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, it is expected that the studio will expand the necessary resources to create a world around a well-established brand which has generated north of $1 billion in books and merchandise since it was launched in 1974," the report notes.