Dragon's Lair: The Movie

The image used featuring Dirk, Singe and the movie's title

Dragon's Lair: The Movie is a cel-animation presentation pitch for a potential American animated film created by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, based on the 1983 laserdisc arcade game of the same name. The pitch presentation’s story appears to be a prequel and retcon to the original game, aspiring to present a detailed backstory to the relationship of Dirk and Daphne.

The project followed previous unsuccessful attempts to adapt the video game franchise into a franchise film, including a project called Dragon's Lair: The Legend. The current status and release date of the movie itself is unknown, although subsequent reports of a live-action Netflix movie would suggest the film production has moved away from a traditionally animated project.

Previous Projects

Shortly after the release of the 1983 arcade game and the ensuing financial collapse of Cinematronics and the arcade game market, Bluth's Studio attempted to shop Dragon's Lair as an attractive draw for a theatrical film. Bluth prepared a presentation pitch titled Dragon's Lair: The Legend for exhibition to potential investors and studio executives, but the project died due to studios' lack of interest. The film borrowed several elements from Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, and Bluth even used unfinished animation demos from the game--on which production was suspended in March, 1984--in the pitch. The proposed storyline would have focused upon young Dirk's efforts to rescue Daphne and his friend Strun from Mordroc, an ancient evil sorcerer resurrected in order to raise his own army of the dead. Aided by some comical dwarves named after the seven “deadly sins,” Dirk seeks out a legendary knight to help him defeat the wizard, only to find himself in a climatic battle against Mordroc's dragon form. The original story pitch failed to generate investor enthusiasm. Some narrative elements and characters from the pitch like the Legendary Knight were adapted into Dragon's Lair: The Legend for Nintendo Game Boy.

Issues of Bluth’s Toon Talk magazine (2000-2001) contained an exclusive multi-episode "Dragon's Lair: Reign of Terror" comic that might have served as a prequel to another potential film project. The series introduced Vraxxis as an evil king who became cursed to live as a dragon but restored to a more humanoid form by Serin the Alechemist, with the condition that losing his temper would transform him back into a dragon permanently. Dirk is implied to be the rightful royal heir living in secrecy as a peasant in a swamp cottage under guise as a son of Sebastian the Thief with his adoptive brother Ronan. Unknown to the boys, one of them was the heir to the throne while the other was a decoy baby of similar likeness until Sebastian saved the boys from the revolt of Serin the Alchemist nearly sixteen years earlier (but forgot which infant was which). After a visit from Sir Gilgud, Dirk is inspired to adventure into the world in order to fight against the tyranny of King Vraxxis and rescue Princess Daphne, who went into exile with a travelling group of actors who perform farcical parodies about Vraxxis and the young boy heir prophesied to overthrow him. Bluth produced the comic episodes in connection with his work on a film script.

In the March 2001 issue of Toon Talk, Bluth reported that the script for a movie had been finished and described it as "super funny." Having finished Titan A.E. for 20th Century FOX, Bluth announced his intention to put the magazine on hiatus so that he could devote his attention to storyboarding the movie. However, the magazine resumed with a May issue and continued with four more issues through the end of 2001 even as the studio employees continued work on the film's pre-production. An editorial in the July 2001 issue gave readers an update that storyboarding work for the movie was continuing. A promotional video featurette created for Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002 release) included a brief tease for a feature film from Bluth and Goldman, who stated the film project was in pre-preproduction on a script that had been developed for over a year but that pictures, visions, and sets were still in development.

The Dragon's Lair comic book series was developed as a thematic tie-in with a potential animated feature film. MVCreations included a promise of a forthcoming feature film in their early solicitations for the series. The comics were intended to follow the events of the film that never came to fruition, presumably chronicling Dirk’s ascension into a heroic knight and his developing romance with Daphne. In the first issue of the comic series, Dirk is shown to be a highly accomplished (yet unconventional) knight, who has freed many kingdoms by slaying many fierce dragons and embarking on many noble quests.

Development

With the technical assistance of Lavalle Lee, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman decided to seek crowdfunding to develop a traditionally animated feature film presentation.

On October 26th, 2015, Bluth and Goldman started a campaign on Kickstarter to fund a teaser trailer for the prequel film. Having only raised $241,579 of its $550,000 target before the original deadline, the project closed, and an Indiegogo page was created instead. By December 14th, The goal of $250,000 had been met and, after 14 days, the campaign received more than twice the amount on January 16th, 2016.

In a 2015 December interview with the Rotoscopers' Animation Addicts podcast, Goldman described the film concept as "a prequel" to the original two arcade games: "We're gonna follow these two kids into adulthood or almost adulthood and give you what their personalities are about and what they want and how they get there." Bluth described the young Dirk as "just like one of those . . . entitled kids that thinks the world owes them a living and everything they can just get for nothing and he plays and plays and plays and is ill-suited to come back on the throne as the king because he is a prince. So then the story is really about how these two get along and at the age of seven little boys don't like girls much so he's going to torture this poor little Daphne to death and finally she gets tutored by their nurse about how to be a lady and then Dirk finally turns on to the whole thing . . . eventually." Speaking of character design, Bluth described the approach as "still going to have a classical look" comparable to the games but "it'll be different in that the environment is lit differently. It's more dramatic in many ways. When you seem Mordroc, and he's kind of a cartoon looking character in the game, Mordroc will be a little bit more seriously evil. . . . Just toying with ideas but Mordroc, you know, he's this dirty old man and he's in love with Daphne, and--look at him--he looks in the mirror and he says 'I haven't got a prayer.' So maybe what Mordroc's gonna do is with all of his little magic stuff . . . he's gonna try and change himself into a gorgeous man, and he's gonna go after the princess. But the gorgeous stuff doesn't last except maybe five and half hours, and then, you know, he's only got that long to woo the princess. . . But I think you're going to see a style that is very reminiscent of what the game was. Hate to deliver something different."

On July 29th, 2016, Bluth and Goldman uploaded a YouTube video announcing they had made $610,000, and released a small storyboard animation of Mordroc speaking to his minion, a new character named "Grum".

On September 13, 2017, TraditionalAnimation.com reported completion of the pitch presentation and shared a video reel for crowdfund campaign backers.

In his 2022 autobiography, Bluth recollected that the crowd-funded project raised a total of $731,172 from more than seven thousand donors. After the public presentation of the pitch to donors, Bluth and Goldman solicited the pitch to various studios but were unsuccessful in securing a film deal. The one-minute video pitch was then internally vaulted while they pursued other projects.

Story

Inside a large, brightly-lit castle, a king and queen announce the betrothal of their young prince Dirk to the beautiful princess Daphne. Young Dirk does not appear to fancy the young princess, and petulantly throws down his crown, earning him a rebuke from Hilde, his royal nanny. Later during a stormy knight, Dirk attempts to evade Hilde and escape from the castle, swearing never to marry Daphne.

Elsewhere in a gloomy cavern, the evil wizard Mordroc plots with his lackey Grum to conquer the kingdom by creating a dragon from bones of the dead mixed with a drop of his own blood. The wizard instructs the winged dragon to kill the entire royal family, but Hilde escapes with Dirk and Daphne in a rowboat as the dragon burns most of the kingdom.

Eight years later in a dilapidated structure hidden in the Swamps of Despair of the Forbidden Forest, Daphne attempts to clean the floors as Dirk tracks lots of new mud as he practices his swordplay. As Dirk flirts with Daphne, she scolds him for his unkempt presentation and doses him with her cleaning bucket.

At Mordroc's lair, Grum discovers Dirk through gazing into a magical cauldron. He informs his master (now dressed in regal attire and sitting upon a throne surrounded by treasure), that the prince still lives. Fearing the prince aspires to re-take his crown, Mordroc drinks a magical potion that transforms him into a deadly serpent driven with the urge to bite.

As Dirk sits alone in the swamp, the serpent Mordroc confronts him, and the two engage in banter and battle. Mordroc knocks away Dirk’s Sword, but Daphne is able to retrieve it. Daphne also grab hold of the serpent's tail, after she tosses the sword back to Dirk. As Dirk attempts to land a killing blow, Mordroc lunges out of Daphne's grasp and bites Dirk upon his right bicep. Dirk collapses to the floor in pain, and Daphne runs over to comfort him. Despite Daphne's pleas of "Don't leave me," Dirk begins to lose consciousness as the serpent Mordroc gleefully watches and cackles.

Voice Cast (Pitch Presentation)

• Roger McKay – Narrator
• Cam Clarke – Mordroc, Teenage Dirk
• Deborah Gatton – Teenage Daphne
• Phran Gauci – Hilde
• Lavalle Lee – Grum
• Ross Nemeth – Young Dirk
• Morgan Karam – Young Daphne

Trivia

• Despite being introduced as a prince, the pitch opens with a declaration that Dirk will grow into "the bravest knight ever known."
• Dirk's royal nanny “Hilde” shares some visual resemblance to The Mother-in-Law of Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp as well as the magical viking warrior Hildy of “Dragon's Lair: Reign of Terror.”
• The Dragon that Mordroc revives through dark magic is not named, but bears visual similarities to Singe, with the addition of wings that allow him to desolate Dirk's kingdom.
• Mordroc’s serpent form bears visual similarities to the red, white, and black striped Snake that appears in several games throughout the franchise.
• During development Dragon's Lair: The Legend, Don Bluth reportedly preferred for Michael J Fox to voice Dirk. When creating the pitch presentation for the revised movie concept, veteran voice actor Cam Clarke was cast in the role.

Gallery

Promotional Artwork

Mordroc and Grum

Production Drawings

Netflix live-action film project

In 2018, Don Bluth and Lavalle Lee began pursuing new opportunities to license the franchise for a live-action movie, including additional project pitches to Netflix and Apple+, during which time initial conversations were had with producer Roy Lee about Ryan Reynolds’ potential involvement. After Netflix negotiations stalled during 2020, a deal was finally inked with Reynolds signed to play the role of Dirk.

Reynolds’ Maximum Effort was expected to produce the feature alongside George Dewey and Patrick Gooing. Jeff Sneider reported Roy Lee and Trevor Engelson would also join production along with franchise co-creators Gary Goldman, Jon Pomeroy, and Don Bluth. Initially, writers Dan and Kevin Hageman developed Dragon’s Lair as a 400-page choose-your-own-adventure presentation similar to Bandersnatch.

In a 2022 exclusive interview with Collider, Reynolds teased the Netflix project as an ambitious and innovation approach:

I can say that Netflix has approached Dragon's Lair in a spirit of partnership that I've never really seen before. They're taking such a swing with it. How we're approaching it and attacking it and what we're doing with it, I think will be pretty surprising to a lot of people. In its scope I mean. And I'm not sure, but I don't think anyone's ever tried it before quite like this. So I'm curious to see how it'll go. It really intersects in a unique way with technology that I've never been privy to in the entertainment industry. So they're taking some kind of pretty innovative stabs at this particular IP in a way that I'm blown away with. And I'm excited that they're as along for the ride as we are.

During the 2024 San Diego Comic Con, producer Roy Lee on a panel discussion with Collider stated that the project was being reconfigured as a "straight, linear movie" rather than the originally envisioned "choose your own adventure" interactive format. Lee revealed: "We had a 400-page script because you could go different directions and go different ways, and Ryan Reynolds was gonna play Dirk the Daring, but they pulled the plug on that format." In June of 2025, the InSneider reported and the Hollywood Reporter confirmed that filmmaker James Bobin is in talks to direct the Netflix project.

Primary Sources

• Indiegogo Campaign Page
  
• Original Kickstarter Campaign Page
  
• YouTube @DonBluthProductions