Action adventure Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves sets off on its UK-Ireland box office run this weekend in 680 cinemas through eOne.
The film depicts a charming thief and band of unlikely adventurers who embark on a quest to retrieve a lost relic, but run afoul of the wrong people.
It is based on the tabletop role playing game that was first published in 1974, which has become one of the most popular tabletop games worldwide, with the game’s publisher Wizards Of The Coast claiming that over 50 million people played in 2020.
Dungeons & Dragons is co-directed by Johnathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Gilio (Gilio wrote the story with Chris McKay). The duo have prospered as comedy writers of titles including 2011’s Horrible Bosses (£10.5m total gross) and 2014’s Horrible Bosses 2 (£3.8m), plus 2017 Marvel blockbuster Spider-Man: Homecoming (£30.7m). This is their third feature as directors, after 2015’s Vacation (£1.7m) and 2018’s Game Night (£4.9m).
Daley started in the industry as an actor, most notably in Judd Apatow’s influential teen series Freaks and Geeks from 1999 to 2000.
Dungeons & Dragons stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith and Hugh Grant. Films based on board games are infrequent, but comparisons include 2012 action title Battleship (opened: £3.8m; closed: £7.6m) and 2014 horror Ouija (£1.4m; £3.5m). This Dungeons film has no connection to the trilogy released between 2000 and 2012 and also based on the game, the first of which took £2.1m with the subsequent titles not released in cinemas.
Warner Bros is starting family animation Mummies in 657 sites, following three mummies in present-day London who embark on a journey in search of a ring belonging to the Royal Family which has been stolen by an ambitious archaeologist.
The Spanish production has been re-dubbed for English-speaking audiences, with Joe Thomas, Eleanor Tomlinson, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Bean and Celia Imrie among the voice cast.
French success
Picturehouse Entertainment is starting Dominik Moll’s crime drama The Night Of The 12th in 37 cinemas. Based on Pauline Guena’s book 18.3 – Une annee a la PJ, the film follows an ambitious police investigator who becomes haunted by a murder case.
It debuted in Cannes’ new Cannes Premiere section last year, going on to play festivals including Brussels, Jerusalem, Hamburg and Busan. The film has been particularly well-received by awards bodies in its native France, scoring six nominations and two wins including best film at the Lumieres, and 10 nominations and six wins, with best film again, at the Cesars.
Modern Films is opening Pierre Foldes’ Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, an adult animation in which a talkative frog, a lost cat and a tsunami help a bank employee, his wife and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find meaning in their lives.
Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami, the film debuted at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival last summer, where it won a jury distinction in the main competition. It went on to play Toronto, Busan and Rotterdam on a lengthy festival tour, and won the grand prize at the inaugural Niigata International Animation Festival in Japan earlier this week.
Documentary specialists Dogwoof are starting Sierra Pettengill’s Riotsville USA, about a fictional town built for the US military, on 20 screens this weekend. The film debuted at last year’s online Sundance Film Festival, going on to play documentary events at CPH:DOX, True/False and IDFA, and securing a best documentary nomination at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.
Further releases this weekend include Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer’s Cannes 2022 Directors’ Fortnight entry God’s Creatures starring man-of-the-moment Paul Mescal, in 53 sites in the UK through BFI Distribution; Tull Stories’ grassroots football referees documentary In The Middle; and Iranian crime film Law Of Tehran through Vertigo Releasing.
Miracle Comms is handling the three-screen release of The Gallery, an interactive art heist thriller in which the audience can choose between two narratives – one set in 1981 with a female protagonist, the other in 2021 with a male protagonist. The film is created by Paul Raschid and produced by Neville Raschid, with a cast led by Anna Popplewell and George Blagden. The distributor is also releasing animation Little Eggs African Rescue on 433 screens.
Repertory releases this weekend include Three Colours: Blue through Curzon on 35 sites, and The Big Lebowski through Park Circus on 140 sites across its first week; while in event cinema, National Theatre Live’s Life Of Pi began screening on Thursday, March 30 and will play through we weekend.
Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 leads the holdovers having set a new high opening mark for the franchise last weekend; while Warner Bros’ Shazam! Fury Of The Gods and Creed III make up the top three.
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