One of Travis Willingham’s top-tier wishes is for a “Critical Role” campaign to be adapted into a full-fledged “Dungeons and Dragons” feature film.
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“The ‘Critical Role’ world is stacked with stories—there is a huge clamoring for the ‘Exandria Unlimited: Calamity.’ I think every form of distribution is great [but] we have never made a feature before,” Willingham said. “One thing we’ve consistently done at ‘Critical Role’ is we’ve tried to find where the ceiling is. What are we capable of doing? What are our wildest dreams, and are we able to achieve those? I think the desire is there. It might just be a matter of finding the time for everything else, but I think the potential is certainly there.”
Willingham joined Variety Studio, presented by Google TV at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con, to chat all things “The Legend of Vox Machina” Season 3 and teased what fans can come to expect about the season he said is sure to “set the internet on fire.”
The Prime Video animated fantasy series based on the “Dungeons and Dragons” web series “Critical Role,” follows a group of misfit adventurers known as Vox Machina as they embark on epic quests, confront dark forces, and strive to protect the realm of Tal’Dorei.
The show’s third season is slated for an Oct. 3 release on the streamer.
Willingham spoke about the unique challenge that always comes with distilling hundreds of hours worth of campaign content into 12 30-minute-long episodes—reflecting on having had over 400 hours worth of content when they were creating Seasons 1 and 2 and having to trim it down into just six hours.
With Season 3, Willingham noted how he was glad to be able to use this arc to set up the larger aspects of Exandria as a world, saying, “We’re getting to stretch the breadth of what the story encompasses. So we have a little sneak peek of our heroes hitting a new continent this season, a few more after that, and rounding out the sort of villains they’re starting to see. But it’s going to set up the larger picture in terms of what Exandria holds for both of these series.”
He continued: “One of the amazing things about ‘Vox Machina’ is it sort of set the base for where the universe was built, and both series will, in our minds, be connected by those little red chaos strings that we like to do in our writer’s room. We always set up little easter eggs and things for our audience to find. But we do it because we know they’re expecting it.”
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Willingham also reflected on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes, in which actors—specifically video game voice actors—have hit the picket lines as gaming companies refuse to meet their demands on artificial intelligence.
Though he noted that AI can have a place in businesses, companies need to exercise caution regarding the potential to replicate and re-utilize a performer’s likeness to recreate past performances for future projects.
“Anything that could take the place of someone that’s a writer, that’s an actor, that’s using their voice, using any kind of expression, stunts, motion capture, that’s a sticky place to be. Frankly for me, it’s an overreach if a company says, ‘We’re going to hire you to do this thing, but we’re also going to capture your likeness. We’re going to be able to use it as much as we want to, and that’s something that we’ve agreed to,'” he said.
“There is enough of a voice from SAG to say, ‘Listen, this is a concern of our members. We’ve been talking to you guys for 20 plus months, and there hasn’t been any movement on this. We really love to offer this sort of protection for our performers, and it just hasn’t been heard,'” he said. “It’s unfortunate that these things have to happen, but I think they also have to recognize that this us what the best of the best is asking for and it helps just protect this kind of industry.”
He concluded by saying: “I hope there is a quick resolution to it, but, you know, we stand strong behind SAG absolutely.”
Willingham also jokingly referenced actors he’d “love” could appear in future seasons of “The Legend of Vox Machine.” Though he found it difficult to limit his shopping cart, he asked about Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Andy Serkis and the Hobbits’ availability.
Watch the full interview above to learn more about how “Critical Role” plans to celebrate its 10th anniversary and what easter eggs fans can expect from “The Legend of Vox Machine” Season 3.
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