It’s been a long week — for you, me, ScreenCrush, America, and Earth. It’s nice to be able to take a moment on Friday to enjoy some more uplifting news, and today has happily obliged us with the announcement that Joe Manganiello went right ahead and wrote a Dungeons & Dragons screenplay. The man I assume must be the most ripped D&D nerd on the planet recently made a guest appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he informed host Josh Horowitz that he had co-authored a script based on the popular table-top roleplaying game with a “playwright friend from Carnegie Mellon” last year. Somewhere in the great dork beyond, Gary Gygax is looking down on Manganiello and smiling.

This is no mere trifle, either. Lifelong D&D player Manganiello took his task as seriously as could be, consulting with the game’s published Wizards of the Coast to determine the feel, concept, and direction of the project. He’s given this all some thought, telling Horowitz: “What makes a great superhero or fantasy movie is the human aspect. It’s got to be about something. We root for those characters in Game of Thrones. Fellowship of the Ring was about friendship, this undying love for your friends. That’s something everyone can identify with.” And with that sentence alone, this hypothetical film is already superior to the recent Warcraft. (By the way, this would all be independent of the Ansel Elgort D&D vehicle that was rumored to get going last year.)

But the prospect of a Manganiello-made D&D project is a tantalizing one indeed. Will he also appear in the film? Perhaps as a hulking, muscle-bound dwarf, or night elf? Will he join forces with Carlos?!

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