Chris Pine Shares Heartwarming Reason He Joined Dungeons & Dragons Movie

Chris Pine shares the heartwarming reason he joined the Dungeons & Dragons movie. Dungeons & Dragons (shortened to D&D) is a fantasy roleplaying game that was first created in 1974. The game became an incredible cult success, despite the brief satanic panic it inspired during the 1980s (as viewers saw in Stranger Things season 4), and has continued to be popular over the past several decades. The late 2010s saw a rise in D&D popularity due to the release of the game’s 5th edition in 2014, and its success has been on a steady climb ever since. A film adaptation has been in development since 2013, getting stuck in limbo for a while before Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves got off the ground.

Pine is no stranger to big-budget tentpole fare, having starred in massive franchises such as the rebooted Star Trek films and the Wonder Woman movies. If it’s successful, Dungeons & Dragons could be another blockbuster series for Pine, as Paramount is surely hoping their investment is lucrative enough to warrant sequels. With Pine poised to return as Captain Kirk for the in-development Star Trek 4, some might have thought he’d steer clear of another huge genre picture, but there’s a very sweet reason why he decided to join.

At the Dungeons & Dragons SDCC panel, Pine shared why he decided to join the project. Pine says that his nephew is a huge D&D fan, and has made several campaigns before. During the movie’s casting process, Pine played a round with his nephew and his family, and Pine says everyone was so excited to take part in the session. After playing, Pine says that he believes D&D should be played in every school, because it brings people together in an incredibly special way. Pine went on to say that he joined the Dungeons & Dragons film so that he could help spread the gospel of D&D.

While Dungeons & Dragons induced a brief Satanic Panic in the 1980s, by the 90s and 2000s, D&D had taken on a very niche, ‘nerdy’ stereotype. However, since the release of the 5th edition, several massively popular D&D series have arisen, bringing the game into the mainstream. Webseries like the smash-hits Critical Role and Dimension 20 garner hundreds of thousands of viewers per episode, and the popular D&D podcast The Adventure Zone maintains an average of approximately 640,000 listeners.

In the past several years, but particularly since 2014, the public view of D&D has changed significantly – it isn’t an outsider’s game, but rather, a way to bring people together. While there are several celebrities who have already been playing D&D for years, such as Jack Black, Felicia Day, Anderson Cooper, and Joseph Gordon Levitt, Pine hopes that starring in the upcoming D&D film will encourage more people to learn to play. With Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves set to premiere in less than a year, it’s exciting to know one of its stars is a true fan of the game.