Hasbro has had some ups and downs in blockbuster Hollywood. Battleship ended up being a bomb, but both the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises not only make money, but continue to produce new films (Transformers 4 is due out in theaters Jun 27, 2014 and G.I. Joe: Retaliation just came out a few months ago. This, however, is not a story about that Hasbro is making. Rather, it's a story about a movie they don't want made.
Last week we reported that Warner Bros. was planning to bring the famous role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons back to the big screen, but today we've learned that the folks over at Hasbro aren't too big on the idea. The Hollywood Reporter is saying that the toy company has filed a lawsuit against the movie studio and producer Courtney Solomon's Sweetpea Entertainment, saying that they don't have the rights to make a film version of the game. This is actually Solomon's second time working on a Dungeons & Dragons movie, having previously directed and produced the 2000 version with Warner Bros. (which was a noteworthy box office disaster). The project that WB is developing is actually a D&D retrofitted version of an screenplay called Chainmail, written by Wrath of the Titans and Red Riding Hood screenwriter David Leslie Johnson., which is based on another board game.
According to the story, Hasbro says that they have gotten the license to Dungeons & Dragons back, which would mean that Warner Bros. can't legally use the name of the brand for the project. The lawsuit reads, ""Sweetpea's claim of ownership of the theatrical motion picture rights in the Property is baseless because the Sequel Rights have reverted to Hasbro." At the time of the report Solomon had not issued a statement.
Should Hasbro win, this could completely stop the new Dungeons & Dragons movie in its tracks. More on this as it develops.
