D&D Movie/TV Joe Manganiello: Dragonlance TV Show No Longer In Development

Actor Joe Manganiello has confirmed that the anticipated Dragonlance TV show that he had been working on is no longer being developed. In an interview with ComicBook.com. According to Manganiello, following poor sales of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and the Warriors of Krynn board game last year, "Dragonlance is not a property [WotC] are interested in developing further currently". This decision was also prompted by Hasbro's sale of its media studio, eOne.

In March last year, Manganiello confirmed during an official D&D video update that he was working on a TV show for WotC, and a D&D live action series was greenly by Paramount in January. It's not clear if these are the same property.

Manganiello also talked about his approach to the property, and the new designs he had for the world, the dragons, and even the casting. "I want to make [the show] because I want to see it and I just want to feel that excited and electric about something. The characters...like the casting, I have a look book with over 1,000 pages, but it's not what you expect. The design concepts I had for the world, for the armor, for the swords....I had a fresh take on what the dragons were going to look like, it was going to be nothing like anyone has ever seen."

He has been working on a script for years, and was told by TV executives that his pilot was one of the best fantasy scripts they had ever read. He even offered to buy Dragonlance from WotC.

You can watch the whole interview at the link above.

 

[Incenjucar]

D&D really should focus on one-offs like DC and Marvel do, and focus on side stories, origins, and historical events that add color to regions and dungeons without spoiling the adventures set there, unless those stories are dead.

A Planescape mini-series based on the fall of Aoskar narrated by Ravel would be great, for example.

 

[Zaukrie]

I mean, I'd make a procedural (people love those) with a group of investigators or dungeon delvers, catching criminals and defeating "monsters". Monster a week, gang a week, heist a week......I think big, long, story arcs are tough. It's hard to jump in......

 

[humble minion]

The way to make Dragonlance more attractive as a licensed property is to make it a hit again in the RPG space.

I honestly don’t think that’s the case. What really makes a popular, successful licenced property is memorable, relatable, and compelling characters. In a TTRPG supplement, that looks a bit much like NPC-dominance (to the degree you can do it at all - that’s normally something that has to happen around the table). Looking at the success of BG3 for instance - it’s Karlach and Asterion that people are still talking about, not about the setting or the main character’s plotline.

 

[humble minion]

And as far as the writing talents of Weis & Hickman are concerned, I would point out that they at least finished their series

Well, given they’re currently two books into ANOTHER new trilogy, starring Raistlin, Sturm, and Tas decades after all of those characters canonically died in print, that’s kinda debatable!

 

[Zaukrie]

I honestly don’t think that’s the case. What really makes a popular, successful licenced property is memorable, relatable, and compelling characters. In a TTRPG supplement, that looks a bit much like NPC-dominance (to the degree you can do it at all - that’s normally something that has to happen around the table). Looking at the success of BG3 for instance - it’s Karlach and Asterion that people are still talking about, not about the setting or the main character’s plotline.

Agreed.....

 

[Shardstone]

First, I'm just going to take a moment here to lol at the idea of GRRM's writing being good. The man can come up with decent stories (though, like most fantasy writers, easily falls into pointless rambling instead of actually finishing them), but the writing itself is just painfully bad. And Jordan is worse. I couldn't even get through the first chapter of WoT.

Second, this is a disappointment. Yeah, the DL setting has a lot of issues, but most of them are actually pretty easy to excise/edit into something better. Gully dwarves were always stupid and no one will care if you drop them. Hell, most people wouldn't even notice. I'm pretty sure I've never met anyone that actually used them in their DL games. Brush off the details of the Cataclysm and just use it like the generic semi-apocalypse in the past. Or, you know, take a reasonable moral stand and call out both the Kingpriest's stuff /and/ dropping a space rock on the world about as acts of evil. Unless you're in that part of history, it doesn't really matter very much except as set dressing, anyway. Stuff like that. So easy.

Outside of those issues, DL has a lot of cool stuff going for it. It is a better setting than FR, hands down. The only thing FR has going for it is that it's so utterly generic and bland that it's broad-spectrum inoffensive to pretty much everyone. It's the Nickelback of fantasy settings. DL has issues, but that's because it was actually trying to do something interesting. It gave us enemies that are both seriously monstrous, but also seriously tragic. It gave us interesting characters and showcased how war can turn even lifelong friends against each other. It gave us kender, which are awesome, and if you hate them, it's because either you hate fun, or you let various That Guys define them in your mind.

If it was even half as good as Manganiello suggests it was, not having this show is a sad situation for D&D, and probably for the fantasy genre in general. And even if it's not... well, it couldn't be worse than the WoT series, and some people like that a lot, so it's still a loss.

GRRM's writing is by no measure bad. And even if it was, that has nothing to do with the points brought up in this thread about Game of Thrones.

 

[delericho]

I wish I could say this was a surprise.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Well, given they’re currently two books into ANOTHER new trilogy, starring Raistlin, Sturm, and Tas decades after all of those characters canonically died in print, that’s kinda debatable!

Heh, GRRM had originally planned on A Song of Ice and Fire being a trilogy. I kinda think that he should've stuck with that limit, and just started writing another trilogy if he had more stuff to say.

 

[humble minion]

I wish I could say this was a surprise.

It’s never a surprise when a movie/tv project falls over in the pitching/development/scripting stages. I’d be surprised if 10% of projects (even only counting serious ones, not the scripts that LA waiters keep in their back pockets waiting for their big break) actually make it to the screen.

I’m not holding out much hope that we’ll ever get to see Henry Cavill’s Warhammer show either.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Well, I wouldn't be one of the people saying that.

That's exactly why I put 'everyone' in quotes!

There would still be valid reasons not to greenlight it -- Rings of Power, Wheel of Time and Willow -- but at least there would be demonstrable sales to point to.

I'm confident that Amazon scooped up Vox Machina based on numbers they could see on a piece of paper, including Critical Role Kickstarter numbers, YouTube subscriptions, podcast downloads and more.

Dragonlance doesn't really have any current numbers to show other than the most recent product numbers.

Yeah, if it's purely a scenario of trying to show someone who has money, but no idea on the products, a figure sheet, I can see how "sold tons of books 30 years ago" and "can't sell D&D books now, with D&D otherwise being big" - none of those are very compelling.