Critical Role's Sam Riegel teases a movie set during the Calamity War

3 days ago 10

Published Mar 10, 2026, 9:27 AM EDT

Grab the popcorn, Critters, a Calamity animated movie could be coming

An image showcasing the Critical Role team at a large table with dice, tankards and popcorn. In front of them is Sam Riegel and Matthew Mercer, who acts as an overlay. They stand side by side.

Critical Role began as a group of nerdy voice actors coming together on Geek & Sundry to stream their Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Ten years later, the multimedia company has expanded beyond what they ever imagined, with its own tabletop RPG, nearly 400 episodes of live-streamed D&D across four campaigns, two animated adaptations, several spin-off comics and novels. Now, according to one of its co-founders, a movie might also be in the works.

Speaking to Popverse's Grant DeArmitt backstage at Emerald City Comic Con, Sam Riegel, one of the company's co-founders, teased a cinematic future for Critical Role. "We’re about to pitch — I don’t even know if you guys know this — we’re about to pitch a movie. We’ve got things cooking," Riegel shared.

Riegel would later give a very big clue about what that movie would be about during the Sunday ECCC Critical Role panel. "Would you guys like to see an animated Calamity movie?" Riegel asked the audience. The question was met with loud cheers from the crowd full of Critters, to which Riegel responded, "I would too. I would too."

A posed photo of the cast of Critical Role

It's not hard to see why fans would immediately lean towards the idea of an animated movie about the Calamity War. For the uninitiated, the Calamity (also referred to as the Great Calamity) was a war fought between two sets of gods: the Prime Deities of Exandria and the Betrayer Gods. This divine conflict lasted for around two centuries and resulted in the Prime Deities banishing the Betrayer Gods from Exandria. It effectively ended the Age of Arcanum and ushered in an era known as the Divergence.

There has been mention of Calamity in both of Critical Role's television adaptations — The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein. However, the best way to understand the events of Calamity is to check out the 2022 miniseries, Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, which is set 1,000 years before the start of Campaign 1: Vox Machina. It also features as DM Brennan Lee Mulligan, who is currently in charge of Critical Role Campaign 4.

It's unknown to whom Critical Role is pitching their movie to, but given the success of the animated series airing on Prime Video, we wouldn't be surprised if cinema is the next big step for the company.

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