Maybe Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley can roll a critical hit with Dungeons & Dragons

By Sam Barsanti | July 30, 2019 | 9:37pm

Aux Features Film

Maybe Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley can roll a critical hit with Dungeons & Dragons

Photo: Mat Hayward

We’ve been hearing about various attempts to make a good Dungeons & Dragons movie pretty much ever since that last bad Dungeons & Dragons movie, with famous mega-dork Joe Manganiello even going so far as to take a break from organizing his pocket protectors to write his own Dungeons & Dragons script. That was years ago, though, and in the time since then there has been very little actual movement on a Dungeons & Dragons movie (chalk it up to bad dice rolls). Paramount optimistically scheduled a Dungeons & Dragons movie for 2021, but it was not the one Manganiello wrote, and then just last year the studio started talking to Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay about taking on the role of Dungeon Master and guiding this thing through a (metaphorical) series of monster-filled mazes.

Now, McKay evidently failed his saving throw, because Deadline is reporting that Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are now “in discussions” to direct the movie. The two of them previously directed Game Night, which seems like it has some interesting implications about what this movie is going to be—as in, it might not be a straight fantasy epic, but something with more of a comedy twist. They also worked on Spider-Man: Homecoming, so they even have experience with this nerd crap that nerds like (we’re just kidding, please don’t tell Joe Manganiello to beat us up).