Maya Hawke has become the first big name to join Legendary and Hasbro’s live-action Magic: The Gathering film, according to Deadline. Her role hasn’t been revealed, beyond being described as a key one, and she was apparently given the first offer to join what is planned as an ensemble piece. Nobody has said which colour she’ll be playing, which in Magic circles is roughly the equivalent of not saying which house the new Hogwarts kid has been sorted into.
The film is being directed and co-written by Matt Johnson, the Canadian filmmaker behind BlackBerry and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which makes him an unusual but rather interesting choice for a fantasy epic built on a card game. BlackBerry was, after all, a film about obsessive people inventing a pocket-sized object that took over everyone’s lives, which is also a decent summary of the history of Magic. A television series set in the same universe is planned as well, so the Multiverse is going to be getting the multimedia treatment whether it likes it or not.
Hawke is having a busy few years. After Stranger Things made Robin Buckley one of the most likeable things to come out of Hawkins, she has been cast in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and now finds herself at the head of the queue for a film about wizards who throw summoning spells at each other across a kitchen table. Fair enough. Robin has decoded Russian transmissions and stared down interdimensional horrors. A few planeswalkers shouldn’t trouble her.
The interesting question is what story the film will actually tell. Magic has thirty-three years of lore, dozens of planes and a cast of planeswalkers that makes the Marvel roster look sparse, so there’s a great deal to choose from and no obvious way in. Gamers will be hoping for the big names, Jace, Chandra, Gideon, Liliana and friends. Everyone else will be hoping it makes sense to somebody who has never shuffled a deck in their life. That second audience is the one that matters at the box office, and it is the one that let Hasbro down last time: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was witty, warm and well reviewed, and still underperformed. Paramount and Hasbro are presumably still wondering where the dice rolled.
Still, the omens are better than they might be. A director with a sense of humour, a lead with a genuine fanbase, and a property with millions of devoted players who have been asking for a decent adaptation since the 1990s. There’s no release date yet. In the meantime, the Magic community will do what it always does: argue about whether the film should be competitive or casual. Tap two lands and wait.
Join the conversation (0)