A Tale of Two Movies

Will we ever get to see D&D-A Documentary? We were all thrilled when it went on KS and we could pitch in. Some of us have spent hours, literally, doing interview sessions for it

The way things stand right now, we may never get to see it. It seems that the three people that originally fronted this project had “creative differences” on how the film should track and what that would entail. Originally it was a pretty straight-forward documentary tracing the origins and rise of D&D as both a gaming and cultural phenomenon.

We hear about creative differences often enough. The problem here was that the two that veered off the original path did not tell any of the people being interviewed what was going on. They set up interviews at GenCon for “follow-up” questions to be asked to fill in gaps in the existing narrative. The problem with that was, from what I have been able to ferret out, they were under some sort of restriction at that time. The parties were in arbitration in whatever court does that in NY; while in arbitration, I have learned that the parties were prohibited from doing that.

If that was not devious enough, someone sent me a link to the site pimping this “new” movie: I found myself in the beginning of a trailer for a movie that I had not known existed until that very moment. Once I caught on, I immediately notified the people involved, (I think they call themselves Fantasy Games Films) that they did NOT have my release to use that taped segment for that, or any other competing film. A veritable crap-storm ensued with all the relevant parties, and courts, involved and the trailer was pulled.

The KS was in 2012. From May until Dec., 2013 the principals were negotiating on how the responsibilities and other issues would be divided. FGF violated that agreement and continued to film segments and neglected to tell the interview subjects that they were now filming for a competitive project. The next seven months were spent in a vain effort to get them to agree to Arbitration; an injunction was issued in Aug., 2014. They have supposedly been negotiating since that time, and were making noises about signing an agreement just recently. They reneged at the last moment. The Wanker Games go on.

Their lawyers have asked for relief; they want to bail on the whole mess. The court said no and now a date of June 10^th looms. One can only wonder what degree of lunacy, on behalf of the renegade film-makers, would make lawyers ask the court to be allowed to bail. When even lawyers pass up the potential fees, I can’t help but wonder just how many holes they actually have in their heads.

I have held off on this crap all this time but now feel compelled to let the non-KS interested parties know what is going on. I have had enough of the lies, subterfuges and deceptions. Anthony Savini’s project, as far as I am concerned, is the original, legitimate project that was on KS.