This just in: The STW Daily News Round Up featuring all the news that’s fit to (digitally) print for Friday, July 22, 2022. Paramount’s new Dungeons and Dragons film Honor Among Thieves dropped its first trailer and American Picker’s Frank Litz is hospitalized after suffering a stroke.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer drops
Paramount dropped a solid teaser for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves at SDCC on Thursday, but what did fans think?
If you haven’t had the chance to check it out yet, here’s our first look at Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley’s 2023 fantasy flick, based on the popular board game Dungeons and Dragons.
In regards to the movie itself, fans seemed to be enthusiastic, “This movie looks fun,” wrote a viewer on Instagram.
“Let’s just say I’m down,” said another.
But with the newest Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon streaming this August on HBO Max, and the quarter-billion-dollar The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power prequel series dropping this September on Amazon Prime, many viewers remained skeptical about Paramount’s commitment to the type of world-building a proper D&D franchise would need to be capable of if it is serious about making the brand a contender in the Fantasy genre (Netflix has so many, Witcher, Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, et al).
“Did someone say thief?” “Call the police!” several Twitter users posted Thursday evening, referring to the timing of the trailer.
Is Paramount building their own cinematic universe? The PCU?
In February 2022, it was announced that Rawson Marshall Thurber would serve as showrunner on a Dungeons and Dragons television series, which Paramount said would “complement” the film side of the franchise. The series is being called a flagship live-action series for the company, which means they’re betting pretty heavily on Honor Among Thieves jumpstarting their own fantasy film universe.
But as we’ve seen in the last decade, cinematic universes come and go. From DC’s Synderverse, Sony’s attempt to build out Spider-Man’s bench of supervillains, to Universal’s ill-fated Monsterverse, the question is: will the D&D brand hit another speed bump or could this be the start of something incredible?
Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley and starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is scheduled for theatrical release on March 3, 2023.
American Picker’s star Frank Litz hospitalized
American Pickers’ Mike Wolfe took to Twitter Thursday night for prayers as his former co-star Frank Litz was hospitalized after suffering a stroke. The reality television star has faced significant adversity of late.
After leaving the show temporarily for back surgery, Litz has still yet to return and patch things up with Wolfe, who he says he hasn’t spoken to in two years.
“He knew my back was messed up, but he didn’t call me up and ask how I was doing. That’s just how it is,” Frank said back in 2021. Litz also alluded to their dispute being much deeper than Mike’s failure to check up on him.
“The show is tilted towards him [Mike Wolfe] 1,000 percent,” said Fritz. “I can’t even bend that far down to show you how much.”
But Litz was always hopeful he’d return, telling The Sun last year that he never really left American Pickers, he was “just not in the latest batch of episodes.”
Sadly, however, the History Channel made it official last July and said that Frank’s tenure had come to an end, stating he “no longer fit in with the big picture of the franchise.”
Litz was a favorite among fans of American Pickers, and while it is doubtful that we’ll get encouraging news about his return to the show anytime soon, we just hope he is healthy and safe this weekend.
Thoughts and prayers Frank.