In addition to “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” and “The Mandalorian,” Legacy Effects has also worked on other films and TV shows, including “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Avengers: Endgame,” and “The Book of Boba Fett.” Taking that into account, it’s not hard to see why Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley went to the special effects studio to help them create some of the creatures in “Honor Among Thieves.”
Speaking with Total Film, Goldstein and Daley even opened up about why they so desperately wanted to combine both practical and digital effects in their new “Dungeons & Dragons” film — citing a Steven Spielberg-directed classic as one of the movie’s biggest inspirations. “‘Jurassic Park’ was very much our spirit animal in our approach to this film,” Goldstein revealed. “What Spielberg did so perfectly was to blend practical and visual effects. And that’s what we were able to do with this.”
For their part, Shane Mahan and Lindsay Macgowan, the co-owners of Legacy Effects, recently spoke to Den of Geek about the difficulties they faced in bringing Clayton Grover’s Jarnathan to life on-screen. “It’s a constant animatronic costume,” Mahan said. “It’s a very complicated piece of costuming, and it’s a big leap forward in what we’ve been experimenting with on other shows.”
All of this is to say that, while not every creature in “Honor Among Thieves” was created practically, the ones that were definitely pop in their own, unique ways. Given their work on “The Mandalorian,” Legacy Effects must have seemed like the obvious choice to bring the fantasy creatures in “Honor Among Thieves” to life, too. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like hiring the studio is a decision Daley, Goldstein, or anyone else involved in the film has come to regret.