Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is set to release in March 2023, bringing almost a decade of development hell to a close. It’s a fresh take on the Dungeons & Dragons brand, joining recent entries like The Legend of Vox Machina in bringing the tabletop board game to the silver screen. Underneath the chuckle-worthy jokes and high-stakes action sequences that are strewn throughout the film’s trailer, however, there’s something serious to discuss: could it start a new cinematic universe?

It wouldn’t be shocking to suggest such an idea. Ever since the initial success of the MCU, multiple attempts have been made to turn new or existing franchises into interconnected universes, with most admittedly failing to take off. It’s possible for Dungeons & Dragons to be different. Fantasy as a genre is popular once again, following the success of shows like House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power. Streaming and multi-platform releases are proven successes thanks to Disney+, and a star-studded ensemble can potentially lead Dungeons & Dragons into cinematic success.

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Dungeons & Dragons Has a Unique Setting

     Paramount Pictures

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves takes place in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, the most popular and archetypal setting for most Dungeons & Dragons games. Taking place on the planet Abeir-Toril, the planet is made up of multiple continents that somewhat resemble equivalent settings on Earth. According to ScreenRant, the film will take full advantage of this, sending our protagonists everywhere from the polished masonry of Neverwinter to the freezing tundras of Icewind Dale, each resting on opposing ends of the giant continent Faerûn.

But the Forgotten Realms setting is just a setting. Dungeons & Dragons is actually a rule set, not an all-encompassing world. This means that a potential cinematic universe can cover just about any campaign that utilizes the accompanying rule set. We could see another adventure in Al-Qadim, a separate continent heavily inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, or even Maztica, an area directly inspired by Mesoamerican culture and geography. Based on the plethora of novels and other supplementary material that accompanies the official Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, it’d be possible to connect each independent region through characters, objects, conflicts, and so on.

There’s an extraordinary amount of freedom that comes with adapting Dungeons & Dragons. While it looks like Honor Among Thieves will be a fun adventure romp similar to a typical tabletop session, the scale and scope can vary significantly. We could follow the adventure of a single bounty hunter all the way up to a globe-spanning conflict that incorporates all of Faerûn and beyond. Even if future films don’t necessarily tie directly into Honor Among Thieves, the events that take place in the film can certainly have an impact on the world.

Dungeons & Dragons Could Come to Television

Depending on the success of Honor Among Thieves, we may see a continuation sooner than you’d think. eOne, the company currently producing Honor Among Thieves, also has a television show in the works, per Deadline.

While films can tell grand stories with ever grander budgets, there’s only so much you can reasonably fit into a single film. A dedicated Dungeons & Dragons series could elaborate on concepts and areas touched on in Honor Among Thieves. Each party member can get their own backstory to explain their motivations and enrich their overall character, just like how character backgrounds work in the tabletop game. We could see how Chris Pine’s character became a bard or how Sophia Lillis’ druid bonded with nature.

Entire games have been made based around specific locations, with Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale being just a few examples. While a television series presents its own unique challenges in comparison, it’s certainly doable under the right circumstances.

Dungeons & Dragons Has Tons of Potential

Going beyond the worlds that Dungeons & Dragons can take place in, there’s a plethora of story concepts and ideas that a cinematic universe can take advantage of. Apart from adapting campaigns, novels and established characters provide tons of material for the series to bring to life. We could see a film about the legendary dark elf warrior Drizzt, whose adventures have spanned more than thirty separate novels. We could see the films take on a horror tinge with Strahd von Zarovich, a tragic villain that turned to vampirism and necromancy, or a film take place in an entirely separate reality, focusing on characters and worlds tied together through portals and pocket dimensions.

We’ll have to wait until Honor Among Thieves releases for a glimpse at what a Dungeons & Dragons cinematic universe may look like. Should the film do well, there’s potential for the tabletop franchise to rival the likes of Lord of the Rings in terms of popularity. There’s also an equal chance it could bomb horrifically, just like Universal’s Dark Universe. Seeing as Honor Among Thieves looks like a much better film than the new The Mummy, optimism remains high.