Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves directors on being inspired by Star Wars and how they landed *that* cameo

gamesradar.com:

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is now out in cinemas, and to mark the occasion, the Inside Total Film podcast (opens in new tab) sat down with directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. The duo went deep on how they created the film, the inspirations behind it, as well as opening up about that major Hollywood cameo. Although, don't worry, we won't spoil anything here if you're still waiting to watch it.

Here's a snippet of our conversation with Goldstein and Daley, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full chat on the Inside Total Film podcast right now.

Total Film: When you first began work on Dungeons & Dragons, what did you feel were the essential elements to make it a Dungeons & Dragons movie, as opposed to just being another fantasy movie?

Jonathan Goldstein: The biggest element for us was that it captured the spirit of the game, which is all about spontaneity, unpredictability, solving problems on the fly, and the fun of it, frankly, because we’ve seen any number of shows and movies in the fantasy realm that have been deadly serious, and we felt there was an unrepresented corner of the genre.

John Francis Daley: Which is so, you know, baked into the DNA of D&D. I don’t think they were taking it entirely seriously when they created a gelatinous cube.

How did you maintain that tone throughout? Like you say, it is very funny, but it’s not sort of snarky, and not taking the mickey out of itself. What was your North Star when it came to the tone?

John Francis Daley: Well, we have a deep reverence and respect for the game, and I think that helps to keep us from being cynical about it. I think often the big mistake that people make when they want to approach something comedically is