THE DICE GUYS

IT'S BEEN AN EPIC QUEST TO GET DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES TO THE BIG SCREEN. TOTAL FILM MEETS THE FILM-MAKERS AND ENSEMBLE CAST HOPING TO ROLL A 20 ON A NEW BLOCKBUSTER CAMPAIGN.

- JACK SHEPHERD

They’re absolutely right, I do hate everything, and I hate everyone…’ Total Film’s just hopped on an evening Zoom call with Hugh Grant and shared the sentiments of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley – the directors of Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves – who previously told TF that, when casting their fantasy epic, they were hesitant about approaching the British icon because of his high standards. They needn’t have worried.

‘First, I thought [the script] was touching and funny,’ Grant says. ‘And then I spoke to [the directors]. I picked up a Monty Python vibe. And I thought it was quite amusing for me, after all these years, to do one of these huge mega-budget franchise special-effects things.’

Whereas a Dungeons & Dragons movie seems an amusing next step for Grant, it was a straightforward one for Chris Pine, the man who previously brought James T. Kirk, Jack Ryan and Steve Trevor to the big screen. ‘I didn’t know anything about Dungeons & Dragons,’ Pine admits. ‘I went into it pretty tabula rasa and was really enamoured by this very specific tone. Tentpoles fit into being either snarky or meta or self-aware or earnest, and this landed in the earnest, heartfelt camp. There’s certainly some self-awareness, but nothing that gets in the way of old-fashioned, populist filmmaking.’