HERO QUEST maybe not returning after all

Just a few days into its campaign to resurrect the classic 1989 board game Hero Quest, Gamezone Miniatures have run afoul of IP laws and had the project suspended.

So far the only official word is that the Kickstarter is the subject of a copyright dispute, with no word given on what parties are involved. The most likely possibility is that Hasbro, who own the Hero Quest brand name and the original game rights, were not impressed with Gamezone's claim that they would be shipping the game outside of Spain and other countries where they still have the licence. According to Gamezone, they had been in talks with Hasbro about officially licencing the game to other territories (presumably for a fee); Gamezone saying they could ship anywhere in the world effectively meant they were saying this was not required and the game could be delivered regardless of talks with Hasbro, which Hasbro may have taken a dim view of.

An alternative possibility is that the famously litigious-even-when-they-don't-have-a-leg-to-stand-on Games Workshop decided to get involved. Whilst Hero Quest was created and owned by MB (owned by Hasbro), Games Workshop created the lore for the original game and manufactured the miniatures, some of which were drawn from its Warhammer IP. The only Warhammer-specific monsters in the original game were Fimirs and Chaos Knights, neither of which were apparently going to feature in the new version; all of the other creatures were 'standard' elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, undead, gargoyles etc. Removing the few (and always very vague) references to the Warhammer world from the setting and plot description would also be very easy.

Even if Gamezone's project is unable to continue, hopefully the fact that people were willing to back it to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars sight unseen might mean that the project could be continued by Hasbro themselves. More news as it appears.

D&D movie rights battle escalates

A few months ago open (legal) warfare broke out over the ownership of the movie rights to Dungeons and Dragons. Sweetpea Entertainment, the production company responsible for the disastrous 2000 movie starring Jeremy Irons and two (even worse) direct-to-DVD sequels, announced they were developing a new, big-budget movie with Warner Brothers. Hasbro, who own the D&D tabletop game via their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, fired back that Sweetpea's film rights had expired and Hasbro was now developing a film franchise with Universal Pictures. Hasbro then sued Sweetpea to stop their project going into development.

The point of contention is that the D&D movie rights were sold in the late 1990s, when TSR (the original company that created the game) was sinking into financial ruin and was in dire need of funds. Their deal with Sweetpea, in the person of Courtney Solomon, was born of desperation and featured clauses that Wizards and Hasbro (who bought TSR in 1997) disagreed with, but were unable to contest. However, the deal also included clauses forcing Sweetpea to release a new D&D movie every five years or see the rights revert to the licence-holders (in this case, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro).

According to Sweetpea, the second and third D&D movies (entering production in 2005 and 2010 respectively) fulfilled this obligation. However, Hasbro has claimed that the second movie being a TV movie (it debuted on SyFy just before it was released on DVD) and the third being a direct-to-DVD movie did not satisfy the clause, due to them not being theatrical releases. As a result, Hasbro claim that the rights have lapsed, leaving them free to develop a new project.

Sweetpea have now counter-sued Hasbro, demanding that their ownership of the movie rights be respected and seeking a ruling preventing Hasbro from using D&D branding and all use of copyrighted D&D elements included in the original deal in any future film project. A hearing has been set up for 25 March, 2014.

If Sweetpea wins the legal case, it leaves Hasbro in the awkward position of being able to proceed with a film based on spin-off properties (including the Forgotten Realms setting and the Drizzt Do'Urden character) but only if they do not use any core elements included in the original Sweetpea deal, including most of the iconic D&D monsters and spells.

Hopefully the March ruling will clear up the mess. As for who to back, I think three disastrous films in succession show that Sweetpea and Solomon should not be allowed to continue developing the film franchise. There's not much Hasbro can do to make things worse, and at least they'd make sure the new film would have a big budget and likely a name director. Sadly, aesthetic and creative arguments will not carry the day, with both sides deploying big-hitting Hollywood lawyers to make their case in court.

How to Make a Successful D&D Movie

With Hasbro and Sweetpea Entertainment snarling at one another like two litigious displacer beasts, it's unlikely we'll be seeing a new D&D movie any time soon. As a result, it's fun to speculate what might happen if the legal arguments are cleared up and someone is able to make a film, hopefully with also the rights to use the franchise's vast number of novels and characters as source material. The way I see it, there are three viable options:

"The Shadow!"

1) D&D: The Metafilm


In this idea, the film takes place from two different perspectives. In the first, we follow a group of real-life D&D players. They're in the here and now and meet up once or twice a week to play the game. When they're playing, rather that us just watching some people sit around a table, instead we slip into the D&D game itself. The same actors are now playing the players' characters, swinging swords, firing lightning bolts and pausing in mid-action for fifteen minutes whilst someone tries to perform a grapple check. There are a lot of effects. It's all kind of awesome, except it's interspersed with scenes of the players playing around the table. You could show how random out-of-game decisions are portrayed in the game world. This could include the classic dodge of one character dying, so the player creates a new character who bumps into the old adventuring party, usually somewhere incongruous like the middle of a vast desert or ruined temple, and is immediately accepted into their ranks with no questions.

Of course, this is such a good idea that it's already been done several times, most notably in Dead Gentlemen Productions' very fine Gamers trilogy of fan films (the first movie even has the unconvincing replacement character scene). My preference would be to remake one of them and give Dead Gentlemen a truckload of cash for the pleasure.

Also, for added geek-cred, you could cast well-known real D&D players in the film, like Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day and of course Vin Diesel. How about Diesel as the DM? Who'd ever argue with a decision? In addition, with this sort of project you can make it as high or as low-budget as you like, and vary the tone from comedy to drama and back again. Most importantly, it is true to the D&D experience in a way just a generic fantasy movie isn't.

2) Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Actually, this has already been done but few people ever saw it. Mainly because it was a bit rubbish (though still the best D&D movie made to date), but also the fact it was animated put a lot of people off. Still, as far as 'classic D&D narratives' go, this is the most obvious to go for. It has built-in franchise appeal (the core Dragonlance mythos consists of two trilogies of novels, with a multitude of spin-off books and a later series of less well-received sequels), some fairly iconic characters and some spectacular action set pieces. These include massive aerial battles featuring dragons, dungeon adventuring, storming an ice castle and spooky encounters in haunted forests. It pretty much encapsulates a lot of the traditional D&D tropes into one story.

There are of course two problems. The first is the budget, which would need to be 'large', to put it mildly. The second is that Dragons of Autumn Twilight is only the first third of a longer story, not a self-contained story in its own right. If the movie bombs, it'll be left on an annoying cliffhanger. The scale and budget means it's more of a project you build up to rather than lead with straight out of the gate. And that neatly leads to my third and final choice:

3) The Crystal Shard

Originally published in 1988, The Crystal Shard, a novel set in the Forgotten Realms world, has become one of the best-known and most iconic D&D novels. It introduced the world to the character of Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow (or dark elf) ranger. Unlike most of the rest of his species, which was cursed and evil, Drizzt was noble and honourable, seeking to live in peace away from his evil kin. And kick ridiculous amounts of arse. Whilst later Drizzt books can be charitably described as 'formulaic', the early books were (relatively speaking here) fairly engaging action-adventure stories. Drizzt was a (very much speaking relatively here) complex character and author R.A. Salvatore gave him a lot of character stuff to work through, including parenting issues, the problems of racism and how to make friends with people when you're going to outlive them by centuries.

In addition to that, The Crystal Shard has the benefit of being an ensemble (Drizzt is just one of a team, unlike later books in which he becomes the dominant hero) and also of being self-contained: it was later retconned as Book 1 of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, but its own narrative ends in the first instalment, with a simple segue into further adventures at the end. Whilst there are also major effects moments (a battle with an ice dragon in its lair; the people of Ten Towns fighting off a monster assault; a duel between Drizzt and a demon), it also wouldn't be quite as expensive as a Dragonlance movie.

More to the point from a commercial viewpoint, R.A. Salvatore has sold more than 15 million novels in the USA alone (which indicates worldwide sales likely double that, if not more). Far more Salvatore novels have been shifted than D&D rulebooks, and Drizzt and Forgotten Realms are better-known brands than D&D itself. If Hasbro want to maximise their potential revenue, this is definitely the course to pursue. I wouldn't bet on it being a good movie unless they get a particularly talented director and scriptwriter, but it would have commercial clout. And of course, they already have the perfect actor ready to play Drizzt:

"Magic-user, baby!"

It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out after the litigation is over, and what sort of film we get.

Hasbro wins initiative round in ongoing D&D battle

The confrontation between film producer Courtney Solomon, who is developing a new Dungeons and Dragons movie with Warner Brothers, and Hasbro, the parent company of D&D owners Wizards of the Coast, has escalated futher. Hasbro have filed a lawsuit against Solomon and his Sweetpea Entertainment company, asserting that Solomon does not have the rights to make such a film. Hasbro themselves are developing a new D&D movie with Universal.

According to Hasbro, the original deal with Solomon stated that the rights would revert to the IP-holders if Solomon did not produce a sequel film every five years. According to Solomon, that requirement was satisfied by the release of the low-budget TV movie Wrath of the Dragon God in 2005 and by the release of the straight-to-DVD movie Book of Vile Darkness in 2012 (though it entered production in 2010). However, Hasbro assert that this does not satisfy the terms of their contract since straight-to-DVD movies and TV films are legally not the same entities, either as one another or as cinematic features, and as a result the film and TV rights have now reverted to them.

Solomon has come out fighting, saying that he and his company will defend their rights. However, this exchange of views has also confirmed that the previous arbitration (which Solomon was using to show the matter had already been settled) took place in the late 1990s , before even the release of the first movie, and did not address of the sequel issues. As a result of this, Hasbro's position appears to have more merit than previously thought.

Expect this one to run on for a while.

Hasbro dispute Warner Brothers' right to make D&D movie

Hasbro have challenged Warner Brothers' right to make a new Dungeons and Dragons movie. In a balshy statement, Hasbro have started they own the D&D IP and are developing their own movie project with Universal.

Hasbro attempts a backstab on Warner Brothers, hoping for +8 damage.

To recap, Wizards of the Coast, who acquired the Dungeons and Dragons IP in 1997 by buying the original creators of the game, TSR, had previously licensed the film rights to film-maker Courtney Solomon. Solomon produced a film in 2000 that was a box-office bomb. Solomon retained the film rights, producing two live-action sequels. Meanwhile, Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast in 1998 and they produced a Dragonlance animated movie in 2008, which didn't step on the existing film rights by avoiding any potential areas of dispute. Earlier this week it was confirmed that Warner Brothers were developing a new big-budget movie with Solomon on board as producer.

Apparently this dispute has come up before and in a binding arbitration process, Solomon's ownership of the film rights was confirmed. Clearly Hasbro didn't accept the 'binding' part of that agreement and it's likely there will be further legal shenanigans before either film project can proceed.

D&D uses a lot of fairly generic fantasy material - elves, dwarves, wizards, clerics, dragons, lightning bolts, fireballs etc - but it does have some specific elements that likely would be affected by the issues, such as drow, beholders and specific spells like Melf's acid arrow. The rumour is that Hasbro has been working to bring some of the more popular D&D worlds and novels to the screen, such as R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books, but it'd be impossible to do so without treading on areas covered by the existing film deal, which means they wouldn't be able to use them. It remains to be seen how this pans out.