Dungeons & Dragons Movie Composer Reveals Why He Joined Project (Exclusive)

Hollywood is taking another stab at a Dungeons & Dragons movie with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and this time it’s set to feature big names such as Chris Pine (Wonder Woman), Michelle Rodriguez (Fast X), Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton), Sophia Lillis (IT), and Hugh Grant (Paddington 2). The movie is set to be composed by Lorne Balfe who did the music for major projects such as Top Gun: Maverick, Black Widow, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and much more. Currently, you can catch Balfe’s latest score on the big screen in Black Adam. In honor of the new DC movie, Balfe spoke with ComicBook.com, and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves came up.

“Oh boy,” Balfe replied when asked if there are other superhero characters he’d want to compose for. “Well, you know what’s interesting, is that I didn’t know of Black Adam before. And I think that makes things interesting when you don’t necessarily know about the person. Because it’s kind of going, ‘Okay, well we can go onto a new slate.’” He added, “I may be doing one next year for… Not maybe, I am. [laughs] That’s exciting. It’s also intimidating, with the well-known ones because there’s a history to those characters, and there’s big themes. My next one that I’m really excited about is, because I was a gamer, Dungeons & Dragons.”

Balfe continued, “I used to play Dungeons, so when I heard they were making that, I knew I wanted to be part of the team. Because that was my memory as a child, playing it. So that’s fun. And that’s in that realm of – they are superheroes. That’ll be a fun movie.”

What Is the Dungeons & Dragons Movie About?

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. The movie is an original story but is set in the Forgotten Realms, an iconic fantasy setting central to the game. Dozens of novels and video games have been set in the Forgotten Realms as well as many tabletop adventures. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves also has no connection to the trilogy of Dungeons & Dragons movies released in the early 2000s, which featured various D&D monsters and fantasy races, but were not set in any particular D&D world. 

The new movie looks to be more true to the game than previous films, especially since each character has a different class. A clip previewed at San Diego Comic-Con featured the party using the “Speak With Dead” spell and being limited to five questions. The directors of the movie worked with Wizards of the Coast to make it feel accurate, but it also looks like they’ve added a lot of humor. In a fun twist, some characters from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon make a cameo in the clip. Paramount and eOne are also hoping that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will be the beginning of a film franchise.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will be released on March 3, 2023.