Chris Pine's Dungeons & Dragons Salary Is A Good Sign For The Reboot
Chris Pine's high figure salary shows the Paramount 2023 Dungeons & Dragons reboot has the budget needed to bring the tabletop RPG to life.
Chris Pine’s recently announced high-figure salary for the Dungeons & Dragons film shows major promise for the upcoming franchise reboot. Despite being around since 1974, the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) Dungeons & Dragons has seen a burst of popularity in recent years, particularly with tabletop liveplays on streaming platforms like Twitch or YouTube. Its massive storytelling potential has always been a staple of the game, but despite this, a Dungeons & Dragons film has yet to solidify itself with quite as much renown – but this may soon change with the 2023 Paramount reboot, and Chris Pine's salary is an indication of that.
With a plethora of fascinating creatures and vibrant environments, the fantasy-based D&D has rightfully served as the inspiration for multiple tabletop adventures, video games, TV shows, multiple books, and films. The first foray the franchise had into film was Courtney Solomon’s 2000 action-adventure, titled Dungeons & Dragons, which received so poor a reception that its sequels, Wrath of the Dragon God (2005) and The Book of Vile Darkness (2012), were direct-to-video films. The sequels faced equally grim critiques, having failed to capture the true magic and vivacity inherent to the spirit of the game. Adaptations of the tabletop game have also fallen victim to poor visual effects, joining the roster of other disappointing video game movie adaptations. The reality is that it's virtually impossible to do justice to the game's epic scale and scope without a considerable budget behind it.
The Paramount 2023 reboot, however, is all set to change the franchise’s weak film presence, as Chris Pine’s $11.5 million salary shows the studio has the budget to really bring Dungeons & Dragons to life. Though not much is currently known about the film, it already impresses with a strong cast led by Pine (Wonder Woman, Star Trek) and Fast & Furious’s Michelle Rodriguez, with Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu), Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton), and Hugh Grant (Notting Hill) also set to star. The high-profile cast combined with the higher salary for its main lead shows that Paramount is prepared to significantly spend on its Dungeons & Dragons reboot, which could kickstart the movie franchise by making it bigger and more polished than previous attempts.
Though a TTRPG-based movie may not be the first kind of film to come to mind when thinking of major blockbusters, Paramount’s strong financial support is a good sign that the film is properly set up to impress. With that support comes better resources, and with shows like Critical Role boosting Dungeons & Dragons' new popularity, it’s particularly important that this reboot puts in the effort to develop a meaningful and faithful recreation. Directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley now have the financial flexibility to be able to properly revitalize D&D onscreen without some of the low-budget problems that have plagued adaptations in the past.
It's especially important that the upcoming reboot will have what it needs to develop and execute a strong visual style. For a fantasy film, this is especially crucial, as expansive worlds filled with dwarven adventurers, kobolds, goblins, and liches demand impressive visual effects to really pop. To truly be successful, Dungeons & Dragons needs to be as believably immersive as it is to play, and avoiding the shaky, obviously fake visuals that plagued the direct-to-video sequels is an important step in accomplishing the right sense of gravitas. Recent Dungeons & Dragons set photos revealed costumes of multiple characters that capture the medieval style of the game, but CGI will do most of the heavy lifting. Though a higher budget doesn’t always mean a better movie, Dungeons & Dragons shows major promise for the future of the franchise, following in the footsteps of decades of Dungeon Masters to create a truly immersive and fantastical story.