The new movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has gotten rave reviews so far, including a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s buckets of fun, laugh-out-loud funny and has a surprising amount of heart for a movie based on a table top game.
A large part of the movie’s charm rests with its leading man. Chris Pine is part of Hollywood’s Handsome Chris Coalition — along with Chrises Hemsworth, Evans and Pratt — and is undeniably charismatic and incredibly funny. His dry delivery of lines that include mention of Hither Thither Staffs, Helms of Disjunction and the Underdark hit perfectly and make a complicated world seem utterly accessible.
So how did Pine get involved in this project? Turns out, the highly sought after actor had a familial connection that made things a little easier for those pitching the project.
“We definitely wanted Chris from the beginning,” producer Jeremy Latcham explained with agreement from the writing, directing and producing duo of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. “It was very fortunate for us that his nephew was in the middle of a D&D campaign when we approached him. We reached out [to Pine] once we got the script to a place that we felt we could take it to someone of his stature, you know, because he’s Chris Pine.”
Although Pine himself never played the game, his time spent with his nephew on that campaign was instrumental. “It was awesome because he sat down and played with his nephew and realized how powerful the game was and what it meant to have that sense of discovery,” Latcham said.
It wasn’t just the gameplay or the fun script, however, as Latcham revealed there was a little something extra for the youngster. “We had a giant box of D&D stuff dropped off for his nephew.”
“We bribed him, basically,” Goldstein added.
“When in doubt, send a box of swag. That’ll generally get a yes,” Daley cajoled.
It worked, obviously, and the rest was history. You can go see Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in theaters nationwide on Friday, March 31.
