Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Pulled Off A Secret MCU Cameo
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves features a cameo from Bradley Cooper.
While Marvel did publish a single-issue Dungeons & Dragons-themed comic book back in the early 1990s, the latest film based on the tabletop RPG – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – is not, in fact, part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, that didn’t stop the Dungeons & Dragons film from sneaking in its own MCU cameo, with Bradley Cooper, the voice of Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy, making a brief appearance. As Yahoo! Entertainment reports, the small role was even a secret from Michelle Rodriguez, the actress who he played alongside.
The scene features a halfling — Dungeons & Dragons’ copyright-infringement-free version of Lord of the Rings‘ hobbits — played by Bradley Cooper. However, the scene was originally shot with a stand-in actor, and the Fast and Furious actress had no idea who would appear onscreen. She described her surprise at finding out about the actor’s appearance.
It was originally another actor [in that scene]… They added [Bradley] after the fact and then told me about it. I was like, ‘What?’
The latest adaptation of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game managed to stand well enough on its own even without the Bradley Cooper cameo. The well-constructed, often-hilarious movie may have some pacing issues, but it managed to capture both the geekiness of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world setting and the charm of Ocean’s 11-style heist films.
The result is a film that manages to have an appeal that grows beyond the traditional audience of D&D-themed media, and its surprisingly-solid ratings and box office results prove it. Honor Among Thieves currently has an unexpectedly-high 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes and seems set to make $40 million on its opening weekend — surpassing the original forecast of just over $30 million. While the success of the Dungeons & Dragons film probably wasn’t the result of Bradley Cooper’s presence, it certainly didn’t hurt.
The success of this Dungeons & Dragon film comes at a time when audiences are seemingly growing tired of the superhero genre — the genre that Bradley Cooper’s most iconic role is part of. With Shazam! Fury of the Gods absolutely bombing at the box office and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania showing disappointing returns, there’s a good chance that audiences are getting bored of seeing costumed, superpowered heroes fighting villains in front of completely computer-generated backgrounds.
If superhero films truly are on the way out, fantasy movies like Honor Among Thieves might end up replacing them as Hollywood’s big box office draw. If that’s the case, the next decade of movie theaters might be more full of swords and sorcery than multiverse-transcending heroes in colorful tights. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves‘ choice to add in a Bradley Cooper cameo might end up being more of a blessing for Cooper than for the film itself.
Of course, Hollywood trends are impossible to predict, so it’s just as likely that the success of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is just a one-time fluke, and Bradley Cooper’s cameo will end up as nothing more than a forgotten footnote in the history of cinema. Only time will tell.
