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.

 

[Parmandur]

It's a decent movie. It's a mediocre movie. It's not a GREAT movie as some here think. It's a GREAT movie to some here, but as movies go, it's not bad...but it's not great either. It's better than the last theatrical D&D movie released...but that's not that high of a bar to meet. It may be the greatest D&D movie ever made (with the Official D&D branding on it at least)...but once again...that's not that high of a bar to meet. It's a decent movie, but it's not what I would term as something I would have really investigated or gone out of my way to see if it didn't have the D&D branding on it and I wasn't an avid D&D fan already.

This is underselling it a bit: no, it is not a "great" movie that redefines the genre or medium, but it is a good movie that arises above simple mediocrity, hence the near universal recommendation of critics (91 on Rotten Tomatoes, covering just the vibary of "worth seeing", 72 in the more nuanced pproach of Metacritic which is still quite positive).

It's not what many people see D&D as. They think of D&D more like a Tolkien type of fantasy movie. In that light, The Fellowship of the Ring and the First Hobbit movie are FAR better D&D movies and WHAT PEOPLE may actually expect of a D&D movie...rather than what we got. Sure, it seems a LOT like D&D to those on these forums and many who play, but the average person who's exposure to fantasy (and thus what they think a fantasy game would try to replicate) are LotR and Harry Potter...that D&D movie is absolutely NOT it.

Tieflings, humorous bards, and Wizards who don't wizard...really doesn't seem as much of D&D fantasy to many (though it IS fantasy) as something more like a traditional epic fantasy to them.

At this point, Critical Role and Vox Machina probably set most people expect from D&D, or Guardians of the Galaxy. They got the tone right.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh...totally missed that one.

And the answer is yes...."Hat" is just a goofy Marvel film...with D&D on the front.

From the first trailer with the barbarian "fighting with the stone block" I knew it would be endless slapstick rated Y goofy humor....and it was.

This is the problem. Someone says "lets do a goofy silly dumb thing" in a D&D show and everyone will laugh and say "yea, cool, lets do it" happily.

Of course....pick a lot of other types of shows...like say drama. And say something silly goofy and people will not go along with it..."you will ruin the show" with the dumb comedy.

Yeah, they should have aimed for a more serious tone, like Gary Gygax would have wanted...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

it’s also that movies in the theater in general aren't by doing that well right now. And it’s going to get worse. Any future will be in streaming.

Yeah, Furiosa has something like a 90% score with both critics and audiences at Rotten Tomatoes and it's going to lose tons of money. (Yes, George Miller is a famously expensive action director, but Furiosa is hardly alone in underperforming.)

Post-pandemic, many Americans have home theaters that make going to the movie theaters seem a lot less exciting than it once did.

The same thing is happening with musicians having to cancel arena tours left and right this summer, because everyone knows they'll end up on streaming sooner or later -- if they actually happen.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Yeah, Furiosa has something like a 90% score with audiences at Rotten Tomatoes and it's going to lose tons of money.

Post-pandemic, many Americans have home theaters that make going to the movie theaters seem a lot less exciting than it once did.

I call it Pandemic Inertia. It’s changing everything.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I call it Pandemic Inertia. It’s changing everything.

Flat screen TVs dropping to ridiculous prices (aided by all the "smart" TV manufacturers subsidizing them to get your eyeballs to sell to advertisers or to try and lock into future streaming subscriptions) hurts a lot as well.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Flat screen TVs dropping to ridiculous prices (aided by all the "smart" TV manufacturers subsidizing them to get your eyeballs to sell to advertisers or to try and lock into future streaming subscriptions) hurts a lot as well.

Working from home, Amazon, streaming TV, food delivery. Brick and mortar is getting decimated before our very eyes.

 

[Hussar]

Working from home, Amazon, streaming TV, food delivery. Brick and mortar is getting decimated before our very eyes.

And it’s not like bricks and mortar has been doing fantastically well before either.

 

[MNblockhead]

Nah, it’s Page who steals the show. The others could easily have been replaced with cheaper.

I really liked Hugh Grant. Actually all of them did a good job. Hugh Grant would be the one of the main four that I would want to switch out last. Page and Pine kinda go hand and hand to me. They played off each other very well.

 

[Parmandur]

I really liked Hugh Grant. Actually all of them did a good job. Hugh Grant would be the one of the main four that I would want to switch out last. Page and Pine kinda go hand and hand to me. They played off each other very well.

The whoe cadt was on point: just not likely to ser a reunion because of the costs.

 

[MNblockhead]

Doctor Who has done Okay.

Sadly the industry does not agree. When they hear "D&D" they think "silly mindless kids stuff for 5 year olds".

I doubt that. First a lot of the producers, directors and actors grew up with and played D&D. World of Warcraft and other fantasy video game properties have also mainstreamed D&D-like fantasy. And when has D&D ever been seen as something for 5 year olds?