"Furious 7" star Vin Diesel is one busy guy. Aside from promoting his new film "The Last Witch Hunter," he is also juggling production for both "XXX 3" and "Furious 8." Not to mention, he is also being considered for the lead role in Warner Bros.' "Dungeons & Dragons" movie.
Diesel is a huge fan of "Dungeons & Dragons," so the stakes are pretty high for him when he signs on to do the movie. In fact, Diesel revealed that there were already talks in the past to make the movie, but he wanted everything to be perfect before agreeing to take it on.
"They have come to me in the past with something, and I guess I was too busy at the time. For me to do something like that, it would have to be so - I would be - they have to think really carefully, because it would have to be amazing," he told Cinema Blend. "And the previous attempts of any kind of cinematic D&D film have failed and just haven't been done right, and that's hard to do with the typical studio type in Hollywood."
Hollywood first attempted to create a live action "Dungeons & Dragons" film back in 2000 with director Courtney Solomon. In it, Jeremy Irons portrayed the villain mage Profion, while Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans played two of the lead characters.
Other attempts followed after that, such as "Wrath of the Dragon God" in 2005 and "The Book of Vile Darkness" in 2012. However, none of these movies were really a success.
Diesel then shared why the "Dungeons & Dragons" movie is so important to him, and why he wants it to be different from the previous films.
"I have a friend named Flint Dille, who's one of the writers for my company who, you know, will write something for 'Riddick,' or he'll write something for 'Hannibal.' If you ever read that graphic novel 300 from Frank Miller, there's a character that's modeled after this guy Flint Dille, who's named Flint Delius and he's the orator, he's the one telling you the whole 300 story," he shared. "In fact, when I was in one of my more intense pre-production phases of Hannibal, Frank Miller was at my house sketching out storyboards... but he said he was great friends with (D&D co-creator) Gary Gygax, and he said something that really, really shocked me, which was that Gary Gygax, before he passed away, said that he wanted me to tell his story. So whatever it would be in the world of D&D, it would have to be very sacred. And that's how you get me."
