Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

This is no game.

The Empire of Izmer is a divided land: elite magicians called “mages” rule while lowly commoners are powerless. When Empress Savina vows to bring equality and prosperity to her land, the evil mage Profion plots to depose her.

Date of release
2000-12-08
TMDB
4.4 / 10 (705)
Runtime
1h 47m
Genres
Drama, Adventure, Fantasy
Director
Courtney Solomon
Collection
Dungeons & Dragons Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Dungeons & Dragons
  • Filmed in: Czech Republic, Prague, and Kutná Hora

Dungeons & Dragons is a 2000 fantasy-adventure film directed by Courtney Solomon, and written by Carroll Cartwright and Topper Lilien. Based on the role-playing game of the same name, the plot follows an empress who wishes to get hold of a mythical rod that will help her fight an evil wizard, and enlists two thieves for help. The film stars Justin Whalin, Marlon Wayans, Thora Birch, Zoe McLellan, Kristen Wilson, Lee Arenberg, Bruce Payne and Jeremy Irons.

Production

I was horrified, frightened and terrified, obviously, but after going through these different directors, and seeing these different visions, I felt like I had been so close to it for so long that I finally had to do it.

Shooting of Dungeons & Dragons took place from May 28 to the middle of August 1999 in Prague, with a two-week rehearsal period that included eight days of a cast read-through at Solomon's apartment just before. 2,000 extras were provided by Prague's casting agency Sagitarius, with each battle consisting of around 35 stuntmen and five of the leads at most.

While real places were leased for sets, work of the film was also done at Barrandov Studios. Dungeon & Dragons was the first feature-length film to use the Sedlec Ossuary, which serves as the interior for Profion's lair, as a location; the church was decorated by František Rint with 40,000 skeletons of people who died as the result of the Black Death.

Solomon tried to make Dungeons & Dragons unlike other big-budget films that focused the most on effects and not on plot, and was especially careful to make the battle scenes with the dragons not too "cheesy." Producer Kia Jam described Solomon's method of directing and producing as different from how other major studios would create fantasy productions: "they never seem to get it right because I think they replace a true fantasy feel with exorbit…

At the same time, the director still went for a strong "wow factor" with the film, where "you have to be able to say 'wow' at least ten times in the first 30 minutes." The two toughest scenes for the cast and crew to film were the maze scene and the concluding battle.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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