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.

 

[nyvinter]

Additional comments after watching the video:

• Tracy and Margaret were all about it - given the kerfuffle that occurred with the authors in the recent past, I would see them wanting to avoid any future kerfuffles.

Disclaimer: I never read the books when I was 14 but rather tried to do so during the pandemic as an adult — it did not go well without the nostalgic filter. It's probably good books for early teens, but that's it.

I suspect that this bullet is a bit of the problem apart from Hasbro selling their video division. Weis and Hickman are really precious about their books and quite fast at labelling divergences as "not real Dragonlance" and this goes for a lot of the fans too. That's not a good starting position for an adaptation. Least of all when it has a few/some/a whole bucket of unfortunate ideas that hasn't aged well.

 

[Dire Bare]

one of the two is out of print as far as I can tell… you can use that fact for your argument if you want to, but the sales rank is misleading since you are not taking it into account

The Dragonlance Chronicles is still in print. It's one of WotC's evergreen titles, alongside the Dark Elf novels.

 

[Dire Bare]

100% incorrect. Joe wasn't producing a faithful adaptation of Dragonlance, but was producing a story of unmined gold (his words) that the original authors left a map of for him to follow. He wasn't using any of the established characters in his treatment. Helluva lot less than Tolkien's unfinished works.

Huh, like most folks, I just assumed Manganiello was working on an adaptation of Chronicles. Interesting that this was not the case.

I hope he gets to at least publish his lookbook and any other work he completed, it would be interesting to see. I'm sure he likely won't be able to do so, but I'd love to see it.

 

[Stormonu]

This. TBH i think most of traditional settings would be better fit for animated show, than live action one. Lot cheaper and lot easier to be faithful to source material than doing it live action. You could probably do whole 8 episode season for the price of just special effects budget in live action. Fantasy shows are expensive. Especially if you are going for epic fantasy with big flashy spells and dragons.

Unfortunately, the last Dragonlance cartoon version was very poorly done. If they could rebound the quality like the did with DND:HAT vs. the 2000's D&D movie, I'd be for it, but they'd have to be willing to put some serious effort into the production and I get the feeling Hasbro's just shopping around for fast cash for minimal effort at this time.

 

[Dire Bare]

Disclaimer: I never read the books when I was 14 but rather tried to do so during the pandemic as an adult — it did not go well without the nostalgic filter. It's probably good books for early teens, but that's it.

I suspect that this bullet is a bit of the problem apart from Hasbro selling their video division. Weis and Hickman are really precious about their books and quite fast at labelling divergences as "not real Dragonlance" and this goes for a lot of the fans too. That's not a good starting position for an adaptation. Least of all when it has a few/some/a whole bucket of unfortunate ideas that hasn't aged well.

Yup.

The major reason a Dragonlance TV show was in development was Manganiello made it his passion project. But there were a lot of good reasons for this not to work. Personally, I don't think poor sales of the RPG book and board game were the deciding factor, but more the final straw on top of existing difficulties. Shame though, could have been cool.

I would LOVE to see a modern adaptation of Chronicles, but . . . @nyvinter is right, Weis and Hickman have been very precious about Chronicles in the past, as have a core group of superfans. (Although, they are pals with Manganiello, and he wasn't adapting Chronicles, so . . .) The changes necessary to make Chronicles work would cause a lot of sturm-and-drang on the intertubes, which is a factor against doing an adaptation. Still, it could be done . . . I hold out hope . . .

 

[Remathilis]

It's Hollywood. It could just as well be unsound decisions. And the nixing of it over the board game is just one possible reason, and a very reasonable one.

It's also possible that some suit asked as innocuous a question as "how has the property been selling of late? Is there enough call to nostalgia?" And all WotC had to point to was the sales from module, game, and novel from last year. If the sales of the products didn't warrant a budget, that could be a kill point. Budgets don't grow in trees.

 

[Shardstone]

Why not a cartoon serie instead an action-live production?

The answer is always in animation.

 

[Queer Venger]

Why not a cartoon serie instead an action-live production?

This. this. this. What Ive been saying all along; appeal to kids, bring in a new generation to the hobby.

And no, the CR animated show is not D&D; its CR.

Give us a D&D cartoon that appeals to kids and adults.

 

[Clint_L]

And no, the CR animated show is not D&D; its CR.

It's both. Obviously. But it's very much D&D, as is Delicious in Dungeon.

 

[Rystefn]

Or maybe Kender hate is 40 years old and no one wanted to take old bait

That's funny. You still hate them enough that you can't imagine someone calling them awesome being anything but bait.

This. this. this. What Ive been saying all along; appeal to kids, bring in a new generation to the hobby.

And no, the CR animated show is not D&D; its CR.

Give us a D&D cartoon that appeals to kids and adults.

This does seem a lot more likely to work out, the way I see it. Animation makes it a lot easy to actually put the fantastic into a fantasy series. And, unless I'm seeing it wrong, there seems to be a bit of a surge going on with the popularity of animated stuff. Unfortunately for me, it would almost certainly be in a visual style I very much dislike. But a successful animated series would almost certainly be an overall good for the people who want more D&D and more D&D players. You know, assuming it's it's actually good and successful. Which is kind of a crap shoot, but it's what we're all hoping for with any of these options.