As reported last August, Warner Bros. have sorted out their rights issues with Hasbro and are moving swiftly ahead with their new Dungeons & Dragons movie. The latest news is that the project now has a director. Rob Letterman, fresh from Goosebumps, will be rolling the dice.
According to The Tracking Board's sources, Letterman will be working from a screenplay by David Leslie Jones. This is the script that previously went under the name Chainmail and was actually originally based on another, more obscure property by D&D creator Gary Gygax. Warners have been keen to run with it for years, since before the rights problems kicked in, and it obviously remains in favour.
Other than the excellent Goosebumps, Letterman's credits include Gulliver's Travels, Monsters vs Aliens and Shark Tale. His hiring perhaps gives us a sense of the tone Warners are aiming for with this: more family-oriented than grim and gritty.
There's no casting in place yet, but TTB hear that the studio is looking for "a Vin Diesel type" for the lead. Given Diesel's oft-stated D&D enthusiasm - he's been playing for decades; his character is called Morgoth - it's not at all without the realms of possibility that Diesel would be interested himself. But whether his vision of D&D would gel with Letterman's remains to be seen.
There's no start date yet.