D&D Movie Announced: Triumph or Tragedy?

Better get another bucket.

My GenCon wrap up post will have to wait due to this stunning (-ly bad?) news out of Wizards.

So, if you hadn't heard already, Wizards of the Coast and Warner Brothers announced a resolution to their legal dispute over the D&D movie rights. Warner Brothers is going forward with the production of a new D&D movie and it appears as if Sweetpea Entertainment (Courtney Solomon) "won", if only in a limited fashion.

If you don't know who Courtney Solomon is, he's the guy responsible for the last 3 amazingly horrendous D&D movies (two of which went straight to video). His company, Sweetpea Entertainment, had exclusive production rights to D&D movies (henceforth and to eternity due to a horrendous contractual error on TSR's part) and he is attached to the new movie as an executive producer. However, after this next movie, the film production rights revert back to Wizards of the Coast henceforth and forever.

How about Abed for
writer/director/producer?

So, this could mean one of two things:

1) WotC/Hasbro actually "won" the negotiation and Solomon is attached in name only, or...

2) Sweetpea had WotC/Hasbro up against the wall, but does not have the deep pockets to fight this legal battle forever, so opted to try to cash in on one last movie before reverting the rights.

Number 2 was the most probable scenario, which means we have to endure one more horrendously shitty D&D movie before a real screen writer, director and producer will get to take another shot. No matter who won this legal negotiation, we all lose as long as Solomon is attached to this effort.