Comic-Con 2022: Dungeons & Dragons Movie Will Feature 1980s D&D Cartoon Cast as Rival Adventurers

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is bringing back the cast of the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. During yesterday’s Hall H presentation at San Diego Comic-Con, Paramount Pictures showed off an exclusive clip from its upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie. The clip showed Chris Pine’s adventuring party face off against two rival groups in a maze-style arena filled with D&D monsters. One of the rival groups was the adventuring party from the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. It was unclear based on the descriptions coming from the Hall H presentation whether the 1980s group was aged up at all, or if they were still kids like they were in the original cartoon. 

The 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon aired on CBS for three seasons and featured a group of kids from our world whisked away to a fantasy land, where they were given weapons that granted them powers. The show infamously ended on a cliffhanger with the kids never officially returned to our planet. Several D&D adventures and stories have referenced the adventuring group, either noting that they all died horrible deaths or that they managed to live on the Forgotten Realms. A Brazilian car commercial served as an unofficial finale for the cartoon and showed the kids escaping back to Earth with the help of a sporty SUV, while Wizards of the Coast is set to release a new Starter Set for Dungeons & Dragons that features adventurers “inspired by” the show’s characters but are explicitly not the same characters…despite wearing the same costumes and wielding the same weapons. 

The official description for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves reads: “A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brings the rich world and playful spirit of the legendary roleplaying game to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure.”

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant. The movie will be released on March 3, 2023.