Hugh Grant To Menace The Heroes of the Dungeons & Dragons Movie

The heroes of any Dungeons & Dragons game are at a loss if they don't have a villain to battle. Thankfully, the Dungeons & Dragons film has found a villain in British actor Hugh Grant, according to a report from Deadline.

Information about the Dungeons & Dragons film is scarce at the moment, aside from casting information. Along with Hugh Grant as the villain, actress Sophia Lillis (It) will join the previously-announced cast members, including Chris Pine (Star Trek franchise), Michelle Rodriguez (Fast & Furious franchise), Justice Smith (Paper Towns, Detective Pikachu), and Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton).

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley will direct and write the film. The duo directed Game Night and wrote Spider-Man: Homecoming, among other credits, and were briefly attached to the much-delayed The Flash moviet. Paramount and Hasbro are co-producing the film with eOne as distributor.

We're most curious to see just what Paramount and Hasbro, the parent company of D&D maker Wizards of the Coast, imagine a Dungeons & Dragons movie to be. To the tens of millions of people playing the game, Dungeons & Dragons is a descriptor that has roughly as much meaning as "fantasy story setting."

The official worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, including properties like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Ravenloft, bring a rich history of characters and places, while the greater concept is used by Dungeon Masters and players to tell any manner of fantasy-themed story. Unless Goldstein and Francis Daley give us something that uses a specific Dungeons & Dragons world or plays with the concept of a roleplaying game in meaningful ways, we may be in for fairly generic fare. That's despite the encouraging casting, which already has more going for it than the Dungeons & Dragons film starring Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans released in 2000.

The Dungeons & Dragons film does not yet have a release date, and definitely won't make the 2021 release that was going around way back in 2017.