Dungeons and Dragons the Movie The Saga Continues

According to this article on Examiner, the D&D movie (Yes T|HAT D&D Movie) was not really planned as a movie.  Courtney Solomon, the producer, had really visualized Dungeons and Dragons as a television series, but felt that TSR was trying to run out the clock on his option on the property and made the movie as a stop gap in order to retain the rights.

Incidentally, according to no less than Margaret Weiss, TSR converted Dragonlance to the Saga System to avoid Solomon making a Dragonlance movie.  Apparently the fear at TSR was that Solomon would claim the rights to DL were included with his rights to Dungeons & Dragons so changed the system to keep the rights to Dragonlance in case negotiations with the Jim Henson Company, among others, progressed

More on Dueling D and D Movies

Hasbro/WOTC has filed suit against Sweetpea Productions to stop it from proceeding with a D&D movie in conjunction with Warner Brothers.  SweetPea is the Courtney Solomon production company that produced the original 2000 D&D movie and two television sequels in 2005 and 2012.  WOTC's lawsuit argues that the original 1994 contract between it and Sweetpea required a theatrical release within 7 years after the release of the original movie and that a television release did not satisfy that requirement sufficiently to reset the rights.

TSR, the previous owner of the rights before acquisition by WOTC, had sued Sweetpea in 1998 over non-production of a D&D film but the two companies settled the lawsuit out of court, leading to the 2000 production.  However, at the time, no other company had shown interest in making a D&D movie.  Not the case here, so doubtful this will get settled quickly.

D&D Movie(s)

Looks as if two D&D movies may head into production, or more likely into court to determine who has the rights to them.  Warner Brothers announced Tuesday that it has acquired the rights to make yet another D&D movie and has moved fairly far along on it, prior to the announcement, with a script by the writer of last year's remake of Wrath of the Titans, David Leslie Johnson.  Apparently Johnson based his original script on E. Gary Gygax's original Chainmail game.  Warner's bought the script and has had him rewrite it to better fit the Dungeons & Dragons property.

Not so fast, says Hasbro, which publishes the D&D game through its WOTC division.  Hasbro claims movie rights to Dungeons & Dragons and has announced its own D&D movie as a vehicle for first time director (and writer of the last 5 Fast and the Furious movies) Chris Morgan in conjunction with Universal Studios.

However, Warner Brothers has an ace in the hole in that the studio has Courtney Solomon as one of the producers on its version of the movie.  Why is he important?  Solomon directed the 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie and, at the time, according to both his and Warner's lawyers, acquired indefinite rights to the Dungeons & Dragons name, with no rights reversion clause.  This means Hasbro can make movies set in the Dragonlance world or the Forgotten Realms, but is on shaky legal ground should it want to make a "Dungeons & Dragons" movie.