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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I honestly don’t think that’s the case. What really makes a popular, successful licenced property is memorable, relatable, and compelling characters.

In which case, you can just make your own world and not pay any licensing fees.

If you want to sell something as a licensed property -- i.e. "give me money so you can say 'kender'" -- you have to make the franchise appealing.

Otherwise, you can just make up your own setting and lore and plow those licensing fees back into cocaine, where they belong.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

I suspect he feels the same.

 

[agrayday]

Warriors of Krynn poor sales is less about dragonlance than it is about an unfun boardgame design. How Stephen Baker & Rob Daviau managed to make it so boring and bland is baffling to me. It almost as if there were other peripheral influences mis-managing the product,.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Warriors of Krynn poor sales is less about dragonlance than it is about an unfun boardgame design. How Stephen Baker & Rob Daviau managed to make it so boring and bland is baffling to me. It almost as if there were other peripheral influences mis-managing the product,.

The studios, who deal with dozens (or more?) pitches a day, don't have the time or inclination to look into that and see whether or not that's true. They just pull up the numbers, see the most recent ones are very underwhelming, and have their excuse to pass (which is the default state on pitches to begin with).

 

[jerryrice4949]

Planescape and Spelljammer both fall pretty easily into Space Opera style of writing.

Dark Sun maybe closer to Vikings.

The studios, who deal with dozens (or more?) pitches a day, don't have the time or inclination to look into that and see whether or not that's true. They just pull up the numbers, see the most recent ones are very underwhelming, and have their excuse to pass (which is the default state on pitches to begin with).

Yes the studio executives are looking at a B level board game and making decisions about movie and tv projects. Really? There is no way this was a factor in the decision.

I mean Barbie sales have fallen off a cliff the past decade and yet they still made a movie. Yet tv and movie studios were looking at the DL board game that was marketed with little fan fare as the bellwether on whether a DL movie or tv show would succeed.

 

[SteveC]

I'm actually glad to hear this. Unless we were very lucky, we would get a generic fantasy story with characters with the right names but little else. Yes, I know that Hickman and Weis were involved with the writing, and that sort of gave me some hope but there really aren't a lot of shows out there that take the original story and run with it. I've largely read through the thread and people are talking about making a ton of changes and how that would be necessary to attract the interest of modern audiences. I'm not sure that's working out well for recent shows. For every One Piece there are lot of Cowboy Bebops. When I hear about modern adaptations I sort of think about the Ship of Theseus: how much of something can you remove before it is the thing in name only?

I'm sad that a lot of the people involved were excited about the project, but then I'm reminded of how excited Henry Cavill was about the Witcher in the beginning.

 

[mamba]

So far the only unlikeable character I've found is the proto-Gandalf. And I'm rooting for Sauron too, which is actually the point of good character development, particularly with your adversary.

I’d vote Galadriel as least likable, and the proto-hobbits are awful too, always singing about leaving no one behind and then pushing the guy with the broken cart to the last spot in the trek the first chance they get, so once he breaks down for good they do not have to bother with him any more and can walk on, pretending not to notice.
That boy in the village who found the item also is high on my unlikable list.

I have seen too little of Gandalf to have an opinion on him

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I’d vote Galadriel as least likable

She should be unlikeable. At this point, she's a barely reformed war criminal.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

While I would have been interested to see this series, I can't say I'm surprised. Dragonlance was a decent story for the time, but times have changed. I don't have demographics, but I suspect these boards skew older than the D&D player base as a whole, and I think a lot of us around here don't fully appreciate how different the current culture is. We can't really expect what was cool in the 80's to still be cool with the younger generation now (for perspective, that would be like expecting us to get excited about WWII era stuff back when DL first came out!). I feel like WotC was heavily leaning in to nostalgia for a while, but I think it's past time to shift to new stories an new ideas more.

I think this view is ironically more prevelant with older folks, then younger. I've seen no actual evidence that young folks reject DL as a whole or its story.

No what happened that killed it is that they bungled the first two products for it in 5e (besides the novels which I believe sold well).

It really goes to how deeply flawed Jeremy Crawford's philosphy on setting products really is. They need to be immersive, they need to have substance, not just be pretty to look at and miniumalist, they need depth. And experimental rules like board game and Spelljammer should have had playtesting.

And its his failed approach to setting products that killed Dragonlance, outside of novels and dmsguild.

Seriously make Jeremy stick to what he does best, setting neutral player options for stuff like the new PHB. Or even adventures or adventure anthologies. Just keep him away from setting product before he kills let another setting's potential.

I absolutely blame Jeremy for this.

 

[mamba]

She should be unlikeable. At this point, she's a barely reformed war criminal.

should she also be irrational and jump off the ship in the middle of the ocean or insult the people you are stranded with and are your only means to get where you want to?