D&D Movie/TV Paramount+ Will Not Proceed with Dungeons & Dragons Live-Action TV Show

Deadline reports that the live-action Dungeons & Dragons television series will not continue at Paramount+. The show was originally announced in January 2023 as Paramount+ placed an eight episode straight-to-series order. Normally that’s the best you can hope for in terms of a guarantee of the show happening as the show would produce the entire first season instead of needing to make a pilot to be approved.

Two big corporate changes happened since then, however. First, Hasbro sold the show’s co-producer Entertainment One to Lionsgate in December 2023 and shifted the production to Hasbro Entertainment. Currently, Paramount is searching for a buyer for the company with the current front runner according to reports being Sony Pictures, who have partnered with private equity firms to place a rumored $26 billion offer for the studio.

Little was announced about the plot other than it would be character-focused and involve the Underdark. These tidbits plus the fact that the character of Xenk from the 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was originally intended to be Drizzt Do'Urden but changed during pre-production led to speculation that the series would be an adaptation of the Drizzt novels, particularly the origin story novel Homeland.

Creator Rawson Marshall Thurber (Red Notice, Easy A, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) and showrunner Drew Crevello (The Grudge 2, WeCrashed) are still attached to the project. Hasbro will repackage and update the pitch for the show and stop it around to other distributors.

 

[bloodtide]

I don't think live action D&D has to be the level of quality and expense of GoT or Witcher. And probably shouldn't.

This is what the big problem is: they don't need to go all out. They just need to make a good show.

Look at what groups like Viva La Dirt do on a shoestring. It's obviously fantasy. It's fun. It's immersive. Sure, when they do special F/X they suck, but you could spend your money on a few flashy spells and keep most of the episodes with character interaction and role play. You know, that thing we say D&D is about?

That is a good example. I wish I could tell all the show runners you don't need a million dollars of CGI spam every time a character teleports or tosses a fireball. The shows could save a ton of money by just having the character walk away, or do the super old "turn off camera, have character walk off set and turn camera back on...woosh, where did they go?".

Fantasy sets don't have to be that expensive anymore. So many decent fantasy sets already exist you don't have to build Hobbiton or King's Landing. Costumes don't have to be Dune level expense. Look at all the stuff people use at Renn Faires and Cons.

This too. Plenty of old shows...like Doctor Who did this quite well. They went on location to a real castle, and shot the show.

 

[Zardnaar]

Again, we just had solid evidence you can have great visuals for much lower cost. It just won the Oscar for visual effects. Hollywood has gotten incredibly lazy on VFX. They throw money at the issue for mediocre results. When you actually gather a good dedicated team in-house at VFX that are creative and able to combine digital with prop technology, you get better results for far less costs. It's a story worth watching for a few minutes:




And that's the problem. What they're doing right now with name actors isn't working. It's not making that money back. They're using an old model of marketing with actor names which isn't paying off in marketing anymore.



Because it's not selling? More mainstream than ever is saying very little, since it wasn't mainstream at all before and now it's just a blip in terms of overall popularity. I am not anti-anime and if people like it. more power to them. I certainly love Myazaki movies. But most anime gets only a fraction of the viewers needed to sustain a major property.

You can also use less cgi or be subtle about it eg Forest Gump.

Animated Spiderman movies also had a good ratio.

Tge reason the budgets have blown out billion dollar movies still have a better return than numerous smaller ones.

But they're the exception not the rule still.

 

[Oofta]

As much as I enjoyed HAT, it didn't need all the special effects. In some ways I think it hurt because people thought it would just be another superhero CGI fest. Some things, like the dragon wiping out an army were cool, but were they really needed? I would have rather had a low level group with fairly minimal CGI for a lower budget movie instead of going to spectacle to bring people in.

Ah well, water under the bridge.

 

[Mistwell]

As much as I enjoyed HAT, it didn't need all the special effects. In some ways I think it hurt because people thought it would just be another superhero CGI fest. Some things, like the dragon wiping out an army were cool, but were they really needed? I would have rather had a low level group with fairly minimal CGI for a lower budget movie instead of going to spectacle to bring people in.

Ah well, water under the bridge.

I absolutely agree. Covid cost that movie some of its budget as well (they had a shut down and re-start). But if they'd made that a $100M movie I bet it sells just as many tickets. Did we need Michelle Rodriguez and Hugh Grant, or could they have just done Chris Pine for name recognition, Regé-Jean Page from Bridgeton fame, and hired some good but lesser known actors for the rest?

 

[payn]

I absolutely agree. Covid cost that movie some of its budget as well (they had a shut down and re-start). But if they'd made that a $100M movie I bet it sells just as many tickets. Did we need Michelle Rodriguez and Hugh Grant, or could they have just done Chris Pine for name recognition, Regé-Jean Page from Bridgeton fame, and hired some good but lesser known actors for the rest?

Na, it was a good cast I dont think you can look back and pick apart every expense. This thing really just got clobbered by an unfortunate release date.

 

[Hussar]

It's worse. In Los Angeles in certain test areas AMC has raised prices for opening weekend. Furiosa was $20.50 per ticket at an ordinary theater. Not IMAX, just their regular theater. That exact same theater was $12.50 per ticket 4 months ago (I checked - still have it in my app). That crossed the line for us into "cannot do it" territory.

If they judge it worked, they will roll that pricing scheme out over the nation. It will still be lower in areas with lower costs of living, but it will definitely go way up.

Must be nice. Full price movie tickets in Japan have been over twenty bucks for twenty years.

 

[MNblockhead]

It's too bad, because it is really good. It isn't Fury Road good, but almost nothing is.

I might have to re-watch Fury Road. I mean, I didn't hate it, but I didn't really strike me as all that great. I've rewatched the original three a few times over the years, but have never felt the urge to re-watch Fury Road. Reading some of the comments in the thread make me want to watch it again to see what I missed the first time.

 

[MNblockhead]

And yet each Star Wars sequel made over a billion dollars. ::sigh:: We get what we deserve, I suppose.

Really going off topic here, but I have a free weekend and am looking for something to watch. I enjoyed the Mandalorian okay and loved Andor. Are Boba Fett or Obi Wan Kenobi good?

 

[MNblockhead]

Yeah... im gonna disagree a bit here. I think the Boys had a funny concept for a hot min, but the writing is very very bad. It also follows the Prime template which I hate. Fallout isnt produced by Amazon (yet) so thats a big reason why its a good deal better than Amazon's own offerings.

What's "the Prime template"?

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm definitely not of the "f*ck WotC/Hasbro" camp but I can't help but feel that all their inept bumbling of fan goodwill over the last couple years killed a very real and intangible resource of fan enthusiasm which could have helped push these sorts of projects over the finishline.

The thing is, the need much more than D&D fans to make a show successful. It has to appeal to a much broader audience. I'm not sure the OGL fiasco has had any impact on the decision on whether a D&D show gets made. Given the success of Baldurs Gate 3, I would think that that IP has enough brand recognition, that they could draw a large enough audience to make a show based on that IP successful. I wouldn't be as excited about a Baldurs Gate based show, but I think it would make a lot of sense in terms of marketing.