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]

Not to mention, I can't be the only person who was way into Pern in its heyday but if the subject comes up around me now I mutter something about tent pegs.

If there was going to be a Pern project, it should start with the Dragonsingers books, which will require a lot less CGI for the most part. Save dragonriders for season finales.

But even there, it's easier to just go with a new franchise in which people ride dragons -- hardly a unique concept -- than paying licensing fees for a property that will barely move the needle on viewership.

 

[Willie the Duck]

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

They were commenting on you literally complaining that no one would stop and argue with you over it. As in, no one was taking the bait. Which, notwithstanding one comment from them and now one from me, seems to be universally the case.

Pern is a great example. It was huge in the 1970s, fell off in the 1980s, and many nerds today not only have never read it, many of them have never even heard of it. (Binging Um, Actually during the pandemic made me feel a million years old, seeing all of the 1970s nerd icons that 21st century nerds had never heard of.)

Getting a Pern project off the ground is hard, because there's no way to meaningfully leverage "we loved this stuff back in 1978" and, instead, it has to go up against every other fantasy project studios get pitched, many of which have easier premises to understand in the narrow time allotted by executives than "well, it looks like fantasy, but it's actually science fiction, and they can breed dragons but don't have a laser gun or a forcefield to take care of the threads, which are actually invading aliens."

Not to mention, I can't be the only person who was way into Pern in its heyday but if the subject comes up around me now I mutter something about tent pegs.

Tent Pegs, Gully Dwarves, walking treasure chests, pig farmers, princesses of mars, knights who say 'ni!'... I don't think the specifics matter. I think we*'re at a crossroads where we're finding out the limits of how much of our favorite things from years gone by are going to get churned back up in the cultural zeitgeist and made mainstream. There may have been a bit of non-representative data churned up for a while with the LotR movies, everyone's kids running around with Transformers and Marvel toys, the evergreen (if every arguable) Star Trek/Star Wars/Dr. Who, and yes GoT**. The rest, be it Pern or Dune or Foundation all seem to end up being very moderate hits, and it doesn't seem to matter how big a deal they were for us when we were 14.
*nerds of a certain generation
**which, revisionist framing be damned, was a huge deal for nerdom's mainstream cachet for many years

Some of them aren't as good as we remember them. Others are but don't stand out with 20-50 years of other stuff also out there doing much the same (sometimes of same quality). Some would do well as a show that doesn't need X million viewers per episode, but require (for live action) budgets that necessitate that. Plenty of others simply found the best way for their stories to be told in their original medium and trying to adapt them to movies and streaming simply because everyone else treats those mediums as the place to be is perhaps misguided. There is so much narrative media that comes out every generation (ranging from wretched to great and everything in between) that plenty of high-quality material from right now never finds a base. That anything from a previous generation finds a new audience is something of a miracle (/evidence that yesteryear's wide-eyed audience are the media executives of today). Dragonlance is probably akin to something like The Munsters -- a lot of people fond memories of it (probably not remembering some awkward or cluncky bits it had), but there's no specific reason that modern mainstream viewers are going to flock to a revival of it unless there's some specific reason/hook/particularly well done execution.

​

 

[Dire Bare]

The answer is always in animation.

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.

Heh, Vox Machina is more true to D&D than Dragonlance ever will be . . . . as it's played at the table!

Fantasy stories can be told well in animation. Fantasy stories can be told well in live action. They can also be told poorly in both mediums. Personally, I'd prefer a well-done live action adaptation of Chronicles than another animated one. But I'd certainly take a well-done animated series if it comes to fruition.

Have you seen the existing animated Dragonlance Chronicles movie? It is . . . not good.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Tent Pegs, Gully Dwarves, walking treasure chests, pig farmers, princes of mars, knights who say 'ni!'... I don't think the specifics matter. I think we*'re at a crossroads where we're finding out the limits of how much of our favorite things from years gone by are going to get churned back up in the cultural zeitgeist and made mainstream.

I'm kind of shocked at how much Monty Python and the Holy Grail stuff is showing up in the last two years. I suspect it's more about good licensing terms and whoever handles the license being very assertive and seemingly very smart about promoting it as an opportunity than there suddenly being a groundswell of demand for tie-ins to a 49 year old movie.

It's probably a longshot that we have such people posting here, but I'd love to hear more about how that side of the system works; I suspect it's a big piece of the puzzle for what gets picked up and what doesn't.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

suddenly being a groundswell of demand for tie-ins to a 49 year old movie.

Zardoz turned 50 just a few days ago and I am bitterly disappointed at the lack of commemoration.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm kind of shocked at how much Monty Python and the Holy Grail stuff is showing up in the last two years. I suspect it's more about good licensing terms and whoever handles the license being very assertive and seemingly very smart about promoting it as an opportunity than there suddenly being a groundswell of demand for tie-ins to a 49 year old movie.

It's probably a longshot that we have such people posting here, but I'd love to hear more about how that side of the system works; I suspect it's a big piece of the puzzle for what gets picked up and what doesn't.

I think you nailed it. Does a property have somebody pushing the licensing hard? Or, is there somebody out there with a passion for the property who actively seeks out the licensing, like Manganiello?

Plenty of fantasy properties would make great live-action or animated shows, but aren't even being considered right now, probably because they are lacking somebody with motivation and influence to push them.

And, there are plenty of fantasy properties being developed right now that we aren't hearing about (likely) . . . and most of them won't make it to the silver screen or our home screens, because that's just how Hollywood works. Most shows don't make it through the gauntlet.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I'm kind of shocked at how much Monty Python and the Holy Grail stuff is showing up in the last two years. I suspect it's more about good licensing terms and whoever handles the license being very assertive and seemingly very smart about promoting it as an opportunity than there suddenly being a groundswell of demand for tie-ins to a 49 year old movie.

I pulled that list together mentally to include stuff that has failed to come back to market, came back and bombed, and stuff that has been revisited but only sparingly. Monty Python (well, some of the movies of Monty Python) still have some cachet. However, aside from a few stage adaptations of the movies (which are very much a 'hey, remember that thing you really love? Would you pay expensive-date-night dollars to go see that performed live?' kind of nostalgia-fest, and deliberately so), it isn't really tramping new ground. So far as I know, the tabletop game didn't take the world by storm, and they aren't trying to make new Monty Python movies or shows (there is talk about a Cleese attempting a Fawlty Towers remake with his daughter, and all I can say is I hope he hasn't invested his life savings in the project). It seems very much that all the MP marketing has kinda been someone realizing it was all turning 50 and putting out moderately priced tie-in products for people who see the content mill articles on the subject and suddenly remembered that they really liked that thing way back when.

That kind of thing is fascinating to me, but it's kind of the opposite of trying to turn an old property into a revived IP. It's deliberately not doing anything of substance new with it because changing it to capture new people isn't really the goal.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Other point is maybe Paramount is not in its best economic moment. It is not only Warner or Disney but a serious crisis in all Hollywood. Maybe Manganiello's work was right, but it arrived in the wrong time.

And here we can tell our opinion, but a different thing is knowing how to produce an adaptation.

 

[Incenjucar]

Really WotC should be aiming for a Lauren Faust or Genndy Tartakovsky D&D cartoon right now.

 

[Zardnaar]

Really WotC should be aiming for a Lauren Faust or Genndy Tartakovsky D&D cartoon right now.

Really WotC should be aiming for a Lauren Faust or Genndy Tartakovsky D&D cartoon right now.

Who are they?