As co-director Johnathan Goldstein put it, “nobody had done it justice,” but tonight when it came to the big screen take of Dungeons & Dragons by the filmmaker, his co-director John Francis DaleyParamount, eOne did as the movie received a rock-concert reception on the opening night of SXSW.
When it comes to the fantasy genre which includes Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, Goldstein, “there’s not a lot of laughs and there’s not a lot of fun, and that’s what we hoped we did with this film.” The filmmakers came in tow to Austin, Texas’ Paramount Theatre with the main cast, sans Hugh Grant, including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rene-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith and Daisy Head.
Paramount has had great luck down here at SXSW before with 2018’s A Quiet Place which went on to open to $50.2M after its SXSW premiere and $188M domestic, and near $341M WW, but also last year with the Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum movie, The Lost City, which was part of reignition of the adult audience post Covid to movie theaters debuting to $30.4M, and making over $105M, $193M WW.
As one fan at the mic put it tonight after the roller-coaster ride movie, “I was left in tears in the end.” Daley, who got into the role-playing game when he was acting on Freaks and Geeks, said the trick to the screenplay he wrote with Goldstein and Michael Gilio was creating “disparate characters with pros and cons” much like the game, which “led to what ended being our script.” Jeremy Latcham, who produced the film, added it was also necessary to “appeal to people who played their whole lives and people who never played before.” Getting a huge loud response from the Paramount Theatre here was Page when the Bridgerton star came down to the
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