Original DnD Movie Director Explains Why He Left Honor Among Thieves

Chris McKay, the original director of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, explains why he left the project. The game adaptation sees a star-studded ensemble cast adventuring through the fantasy realms of the Forgotten Realms campaign from the tabletop game as they fight to stop the evils they unleashed. The film’s original script was written by McKay and Mike Gilio, with new directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein bringing the fantasy world to life after McKay’s exit.

In an interview with Collider, McKay reveals why he chose to separate from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. He shared his excitement for the latest Dungeons & Dragons adaptation as a long-time fan of the games but ultimately had to part ways with the project as he turned his attention to making his live-action directorial debut with the Chris Pratt-led Tomorrow War. Check out McKay’s full statement below:

Yeah, I was a huge D&D kid. I was approached to direct that movie, and I started developing it, and what we were developing—Mike Gilio and I, the writer I was working with—we were sort of developing a heist movie. Like, how can you make this sort of an Ocean’s Eleven-type film. Because a lot of what you’re doing in D&D is you’re going into a place, and you’re going to take something to rid it of some bad guy or something, and it’s usually a little of both. And those movies are usually like, ‘we’re gonna try to steal something,’ but there’s also a dishonorable purpose and an honorable purpose, and a potential choice to make at some point in the movie. And so that was kind of the way that we went about it, and we developed a treatment that the studio liked, and Mike went off and wrote a really great script. And while I was developing that, Tomorrow War came along, and it was a movie that had a window with Chris Pratt’s schedule, and they needed a director, and it was about four or five months before they were going to shoot it. So I kinda had to make a choice, and I kind of jumped on that, which then put the script and everything that we had done as kind of jump ball for some other directors to take it. I think, from what I understand—I’ve still not seen the finished movie because I’ve been working on Renfield—but I hear [there are] a lot of the scenes that Mike and I worked on and then Mike wrote that are in the movie or at least some versions of them. So I’m excited that they sort of continue, at least somewhat in that direction. But I got to design dragons and things like that for the movie. So there [were] all sorts of dream come true stuff, and I really love fantasy. I grew up on a lot of the Excalibur, Sorcerer, and that sort of thing.

So to be able to do something in that world, but also try to tell it through a modern lens, and try to do it through a heist, like it’s this heist team going in, and then the specialist who can do this stuff, and supposed to do that, and that kind of thing, that, to me, was a lot of fun, to just imagine what that would have been and how you can shoot that in a fun, kinetic way. But I can’t wait to see that movie. I really have heard only good things about it, and yeah, it looks great. And the fact that [there are] like Beholders and things like that they put in the movie, and bugbears and owlbears, that was kind of what we did. We literally were like, “OK, let’s open up the monster manual, and how many of these monsters can we get into this movie somehow.” It looks like they kind of took that ball and ran with it. So I’m excited.

How The New Directors Are Adapting McKay’s Vision

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have taken over directing Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and adapted Gilio and McKay’s original vision, having penned a new script based on their original draft. The directing duo worked to avoid the Dungeons & Dragons franchise’s past failures, focusing on the movie’s tone as a priority. McKay had a similar plan, introducing an Ocean’s Eleven-inspired plot to the fantasy realm.

Related: Honor Among Thieves D&D Adaptation Problem Is Bigger Than You Think

Daley and Goldstein aimed to make a movie that didn’t take itself too seriously but also didn’t become goofy. While Dungeons & Dragons has plenty of fantastical elements, finding a realistic but fun tone helped capture the adventure that made the games so loved. Daley and Goldstein adapted the original heist plot from McKay and Gilio’s script, and have achieved this tone with the team of thieves bringing the light-hearted elements and the heist mission providing a familiar plot for audiences to follow.

McKay’s excitement for the games is also shared by Daley and Goldstein and the pair worked to do right by Dungeons & Dragons lore with plenty of monsters and Easter eggs spread throughout. Although Daley and Goldstein also make sure that the movie could be watched by everyone, without being “bogged down” by any excessive world-building. With early Dungeons & Dragons reviews proving largely positive, it seems a change in creative leadership didn’t hurt either vision.

Source: Collider