San Diego Comic-Con 2022 took place Wednesday, July 20, through Sunday, July 24. On Thursday morning, we started out our day at SDCC 2022 wandering the Exhibit Hall floor. After we had spent about an hour walking around, and had seen most of the major booths, it was almost 11:30am, so we decided to head over to Hall H to get in line for the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves panel that was scheduled to start at 12pm.
We didn’t anticipate there being much of a line to get into the 6,500 seat room, so we figured 30 minutes would be sufficient. As we exited the convention center, we were directed to go all the way around the tents set up outside of Hall H, and were not allowed to cut through the middle section. As we rounded the corner, we saw a short line extending down the street just a bit, before turning back around and heading toward the Hall H tents, so we could see that the line to get into Hall H was essentially a walk in, as expected. However, it turned out that it wasn’t quite so easy as that.
The line managers could see that the line was starting to grow quickly, so they made the decision to move us and the 10 or so people in front of us across the street. Then the rest of the line was supposed to continue across the street as well. The people at the front of the cutoff part could already foresee an issue: that other people might continue to stream in and become the continuation of the line, unknowingly cutting in front of us, while we were being moved. The last person in the line before it was cut off was a Miles Morales Spider-Man, so they tried to tell the Spider-Man and others (presumably line managers) not to let anyone cut in line after Spider-Man. Apparently, this fell on deaf ears, and the exact thing that they feared was going to happen did in fact end up happening, as we saw many more people let into the line as we stood at the corner across the street waiting to be told we could cross back.
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal at this time, since we still had plenty of time to make it in, and the problem got fixed within about 10 minutes, but it was still frustrating. Also, the only reason it got fixed was because a loud, assertive attendee helped the line crew figure out what to do and helped direct attendees to go to the line across the street.
Anyway, so we finally made it back across the street, and went through security. They checked your bags and you walked through a metal detector. After that, it was smooth sailing basically just walking right into Hall H.
It was pretty exciting to be back for the first panel at Hall H in three years! Although the panel was supposed to start at 12pm, it didn’t end up starting until about 12:15pm. I suppose they wanted to give the attendees outside a little more time to get into Hall H and fill up the room a little bit more. I’d say it ended up being about 2/3 full. The announcer guy came out and welcomed us back, then had us start a chant for Director of Programming of Comic-Con International, Eddie Ibrahim, so we chanted, “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!” Eddie came out and welcomed us back, giving us his usual spiel about not recording any of the footage shown, etc. Just like old times…
Eddie then introduced and brought out the moderator, Karl Jacobs. Josh immediately recognized him as one of the guys on Mr. Beast. Before bringing out any of the panelists, we watched a behind the scenes clip of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Well, that is, after it glitched out a couple of times and they had to restart it! I guess everyone is still a little rusty after 3 years.
Following the clip, Karl brought out Producer Jeremy Latcham and the film’s Director/Screenwriting team of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. Jonathan mentioned that they had been in “the trenches with COVID” making this movie the past two years, so seeing everyone’s faces reminded them why they do this.
Jeremy had previously worked with John and Jonathan on Spider-Man: Homecoming, so he knew he wanted to work with them on Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Jonathan recalled growing up, he would often play D&D with his brother — but he would always end up “in a gelatinous cube.” Now his own 10-year old son plays D&D every week. As for John, he has been playing D&D since he was 14 years old, when he was on Freaks & Geeks. He hadn’t played before then, but since his character was a geek, he played a campaign with cast members and ended up falling in love with the game. In addition to a unique brand of humor, John wanted to bring to the movie the feeling that you get when you play the game: the sense of camaraderie, coming together as a group, and facing obstacles you don’t expect.
John and Jonathan spoke about how they were excited to bring to life the things that they have only seen in their heads, and that it would be a mix of visual and practical effects. Jeremy was excited about the idea of “found family” because the group of people don’t really belong together, but become a family.
They then brought out the cast members, consisting of Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant.
Each of the actors talked about their background, or lack thereof, with D&D. Chris Pine hadn’t played, but his 13-year old nephew did, so Chris played with his family, who really got into it, and now he wants to “spread the gospel of D&D.” Michelle stated that “You don’t grow up in Jersey without playing D&D” but she hadn’t played since she was a teenager. As for Regé, he described himself as “D&D adjacent” in that he played games like Diablo and Paladins, so he liked role-playing games. Sophia started playing D&D in high school and even listened to D&D podcasts.
Karl mentioned that, according to his notes, Hugh Grant had always been a lifelong D&D fan, to which Michelle joked, “I think you mixed it up with S&M!” Hugh replied, “She’s not wrong. I’ve been an enthusiastic Dungeon Master for some years now.” We also learned that this was Hugh’s first Comic-Con.
The film was shot in Northern Ireland during the UK lockdown. Chris told us that the cast members had a good chemistry and got along well. He also described the script as having a “Spielbergian energy” to it.
We then got to watch a clip from the film, in which the team is trying to track down a helmet, so they raise some corpses from the dead and ask them questions. They can only ask each one 5 questions, but we soon see that’s easier said than done, if you’re not careful! It was very humorous.
Michelle, whose character is a Barbarian, and Regé, whose character is a Paladin, talked about their training. Michelle revealed that she gained 10 lbs of muscle from protein shakes, push ups, sit ups, lifting weights, and taking out her frustrations out on a punching bag. Regé talked about how he got really good with wielding a sword, and due to the stunt training, his thighs were killing him, but also he “had the best ass in [his] life.”
The main thing that drew Hugh Grant to the film was the script, as he thought it was really funny and had a “Monty Python vibe” to it.
When asked for a hint of what kind of monsters we would see in the film, Jonathan talked about how it was a tough decision to pick from the many monsters in the Monster Manual, but that it would feature a lot of favorites, and also some lesser-knowns. They made sure to work closely with Wizards of the Coast to ensure that they were in line with the lore.
We then got to watch another clip, where we saw a few of the monsters, as the team fought against them in a battle arena. Again, very funny! Then the panel was opened up to audience Q&A.
At this point, it was about 12:55pm, and we had reservations for the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Tavern offsite activation at 1:30pm, for which we were supposed to check in at 1:15pm. The site was located at Nova, which was a few blocks away from the convention center, maybe about half a mile, so only about a 10 minute walk in normal conditions. However, we did not want to get caught up in the mass exodus of people leaving Hall H after the D&D panel let out, and you never know what kind of crowds of people you’ll run into that will add to traffic to slow you down, so we decided to go ahead and start heading over there so that we wouldn’t be late for our reservation.
But on our way out, we did hear one audience question, which inquired as to what class the cast members would play if they were suddenly sucked into D&D. Hugh Grant answered, “The highest class.”
And with that, we exited Hall H and made our way over to the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Tavern offsite activation. Stay tuned for our write up of our experience there!
You can view more of our photos from the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves panel at SDCC 2022 below.
