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]

I don’t know about “setting” the tone.I felt GotG had ripped off the tone straight out of D&D!

Well, true, but tyst tone is now pretty mainstream.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I imagine Gamma World as retrofuturist, but not inspired in the 50's but in the 80's. Do you remember the Ubisoft videogame "Far Cry: Blood Dragon"? Think about it, Mad Max + Cyberpunk + transgenic/mutant antroporphic animals (perfect to sell action figures)


I don't think about the return of Gamma World as TTRPG but as a test to become a franchise for all type of audiences.

* D&D brand hasn't got enough power yet. That point hasn't been reached. The people know the game, but not the settings.

* I wonder how would be a reimagination of the cartoon C.O.P.S but set in New Capenna, or in other city in the same world.

* How would be Hasbro producing an animated adaptation of "Batlezoo" by Roll for Combat? Because we know Pokemon anime hasn't a very special plot. Digimon was better.

 

[GreyLord]

You guys have too high of an opinion of D&D.

It's still viewed as a nerds game, despite how popular it is now.

By some, it's viewed not so much as a nerds game, but an outcasts game. I KNOW that is an EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR opinion here, but it's still a minority of the population that plays, and many that play it are in many instances those that are seen as being outside the general populace in some ways (lets say...more artistic and intelligent types are the players) rather than those that mesh in and are deeply involved with the more popular crowds.

What is popular among many of the players is NOT what is popular among the general audiences.

What many who play see D&D like is NOT how the general public sees it.

GotG definately did NOT steal the D&D ideas from D&D from what I see, it took ideas already around in movie making since BEFORE D&D as well as other tropes that have been in cinema and applied them to a COMIC BOOK recreation...a comic book that already existed with a group dynamic.

I know we are a D&D forum and people desperately want to think that the D&D movie was some great film, and that it was everything people saw D&D as...

But it wasn't...and that's one of the reasons it failed. Not that this is a popular idea (as seen from the thread here), but it simply WAS NOT how many people saw D&D as.

This is a difference between what Spiderman No Way home did (it appealed in at least 3 different manners to HOW people saw spiderman, and covered many bases of how people felt about spiderman) and the D&D movie. While the third Marvel/Sony Spiderman movie actually appealed to people in how they viewed what Spiderman was...the D&D movie did not appeal to the general audiences.

Sure, it appealed to some of the 5e players, but seeing how many of those were upset at the entire OGL fiasco, that wasn't enough at the time. 15 million times $10 tickets may have meant that it could have made 150 million just from the players, but we know that there were some that were boycotting the movie. As such, the appeal for those who saw D&D from the general audiences was far more necessary than it would have been without that fiasco...and it just didn't pan out. It didn't appeal to what they felt was D&D or what they felt was an a movie they wanted to spend money on.

 

[Parmandur]

Fallout makes a virtue of its retrofuturism. It’s not a problem. Gamma World’s issue is that it’s a neglected IP that was never very popular in the first place. In all other respects it’s identical to Fallout, down to the cynical jet black humour.

Well, Gamma World is more unhinged and gonzo than Fallout, alightly more cartoony, at least originally.

I don't think Gamma World media is on Hasbro's radar, but given the big time suc ess of Fallout, a D&D branded 5E ompatible Gamma World TTRPG product seems plausible.

 

[Parmandur]

GotG definately did NOT steal the D&D ideas from D&D from what I see, it took ideas already around in movie making since BEFORE D&D as well as other tropes that have been in cinema and applied them to a COMIC BOOK recreation...a comic book that already existed with a group dynamic.

While you are not wrong about those influences, that's also true of D&D and how people are going to think of D&D. James Gunn played a lot of D&D growing up, and it definitely shows in his work. I think you are incorrect in terms of how people think of the tone of D&D, particularly younger people. Tone was not a problem for the movie or its reception, since it got a lot of critical praise precisely for that tone.

 

[bloodtide]

Well this is the issue with trying to make a D&D movie be reflective of a D&D game. Is varies so much table to table. The only thing to differentiate it from any other fantasy is to use D&D IP. D&D settings, famous characters, and iconic monsters.

I would also like it if everything in the movies was in line with the mechanics of the game. Something that general, non-D&D-fan audience, wouldn't notice, but that fans would get.

The thing is D&D takes place in a brutal time.....like before 1400 in Earth time. Everything we know of as "civilization" is like 600 years away.

Though we also don't want to peg "D&D" down to just one place in history and say "it must be exactly like this one place".

The general is a brutal world with no (American) rights. In general,,Some one just attacks and kills another...and there is no big 'legal system' or anything....people just shrug, oh another dead person.

D&D is fighting monsters...and humanoid monsters.....and that is slaughtering them. Not toss down some apples for them to trip on....killing them with weapons.

 

[GreyLord]

While you are not wrong about those influences, that's also true of D&D and how people are going to think of D&D. James Gunn played a lot of D&D growing up, and it definitely shows in his work. I think you are incorrect in terms of how people think of the tone of D&D, particularly younger people. Tone was not a problem for the movie or its reception, since it got a lot of critical praise precisely for that tone.

Movies live or die on how they APPEAL to the general audiences. AS shown in many instances, critics are very out of touch at times with what and how general audiences think or feel about something.

The Guardians of the Galaxy comicbook, as far as I know, is NOT a D&D comicbook and was NOT inspired by D&D. The marvel tropes of banter and group dynamics were from prior Marvel movies that came out already as well as prior cinematic movies (for marvel, this started even as far back as the X-men movies).

Gunn, as a fan of cinema as well, and noted in it's production, would probably be basing the movie off of the GotG comicbook dynamics of the groups (imagine that...) and how the Marvel formula was already working and applying it to his directorial style. Furthermore, he'd was hired with the understanding that he would follow the overall lead of those in charge of the marvelverse at the time in making the movie and how that was supposed to work (aka...a marvel superhero dynamic interactions...which were around FAR before the D&D group dynamics of 5e).

 

[Parmandur]

Movies live or die on how they APPEAL to the general audiences. AS shown in many instances, critics are very out of touch at times with what and how general audiences think or feel about something.

Right, and that tone does appeal to audiences, as shown by the GotG series or Marvel in general. The general audience reaction to HAT was also quite high, as can be seen in the subsequent trong half-life in home video and streaming. Timing and competition was a problem, not tone. I think the movie is quite good, solid 3.5 out of 5 stars, but I didn't to see it in theaters because I was comfortable yet going out to a theater when it arrived. And it was squeezed right between a bunch of direct competition like Mario (which I also wasn't comfortable going to myself, but if I were I would have a hard time choosing there).

The Guardians of the Galaxy comicbook, as far as I know, is NOT a D&D comicbook and was NOT inspired by D&D.

The movie is a pretty serious departure from the comics...being a lot more like a D&D game, for one thing.

The marvel tropes of banter and group dynamics were from prior Marvel movies that came out already as well as prior cinematic movies (for marvel, this started even as far back as the X-men movies).

Right, Marvel movies written by people raised on TTRPGs like Joss Whedon, who had previously turned his College Trabeller game into a media franchise.

Gunn, as a fan of cinema as well, and noted in it's production, would probably be basing the movie off of the GotG comicbook dynamics of the groups (imagine that...) and how the Marvel formula was already working and applying it to his directorial style. Furthermore, he'd was hired with the understanding that he would follow the overall lead of those in charge of the marvelverse at the time in making the movie and how that was supposed to work (aka...a marvel superhero dynamic interactions...which were around FAR before the D&D group dynamics of 5e).

Those group dynamics arena 5E thing, they go back in D&D: thst was the norm in 3E when I started, and most people I know who played older editions played the same way. 5E did change anything, it just leaned into what people were doing and appealed to that as media allowed normal D&D gameplay to get widely broadcast.

Look, if the Guardians of the Galaxy comparison is a sticking point for some reason, how about The Fast & Yhe Furious franchise, which James Lin has stated multiple times in interviews is intentionally structured as a D&D campaign?

"Lin recalls an eight-hour meeting with the actor, in which he used Diesel’s affection for the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” to explain how he wanted to deepen the “Fast” series’ characters and make them more mythic, seeding some of the ideas that would come to fruition over the three subsequent movies."

Justin Lin: ‘Furious’ Filmmaker Finds Even Better Luck Tomorrow

Imagine that you are 42 years old, your last three films earned over $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office, you have transformed a sagging franchise into a robust film series, and you are a native Mandarin speaker at a time when Hollywood is hungry to plant a flag in the Chinese market.

variety.com

 

[GreyLord]

Right, and that tone does appeal to audiences, as shown by the GotG series or Marvel in general. The general audience reaction to HAT was also quite high, as can be seen in the subsequent trong half-life in home video and streaming. Timing and competition was a problem, not tone. I think the movie is quite good, solid 3.5 out of 5 stars, but I didn't to see it in theaters because I was comfortable yet going out to a theater when it arrived. And it was squeezed right between a bunch of direct competition like Mario (which I also wasn't comfortable going to myself, but if I were I would have a hard time choosing there).

The movie is a pretty serious departure from the comics...being a lot more like a D&D game, for one thing.

Right, Marvel movies written by people raised on TTRPGs like Joss Whedon, who had previously turned his College Trabeller game into a media franchise.

Those group dynamics arena 5E thing, they go back in D&D: thst was the norm in 3E when I started, and most people I know who played older editions played the same way. 5E did change anything, it just leaned into what people were doing and appealed to that as media allowed normal D&D gameplay to get widely broadcast.

Look, if the Guardians of the Galaxy comparison is a sticking point for some reason, how about The Fast & Yhe Furious franchise, which James Lin has stated multiple times in interviews is intentionally structured as a D&D campaign?

"Lin recalls an eight-hour meeting with the actor, in which he used Diesel’s affection for the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” to explain how he wanted to deepen the “Fast” series’ characters and make them more mythic, seeding some of the ideas that would come to fruition over the three subsequent movies."

Justin Lin: ‘Furious’ Filmmaker Finds Even Better Luck Tomorrow

Imagine that you are 42 years old, your last three films earned over $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office, you have transformed a sagging franchise into a robust film series, and you are a native Mandarin speaker at a time when Hollywood is hungry to plant a flag in the Chinese market.

variety.com

But once again, the problem is that D&D:HAT was NOT what was seen as D&D in how it appealed to general audiences. Streaming is a far different field than theatrical release, and though it's gotten a lot of momentum, success in streaming has different parameters and numbers than what a theatrical success is.

That said, how successful a theatrical release is and WHY it is or isn't successful can be related to how successful a streaming movie or series could end up as.

In my view, the movie just didn't appeal to general audiences and was NOT what they viewed D&D as.

The numbers show that it wasn't as successful as it many here feel it should have been. It DID have some success on streaming, but not enough to blue light a series. In fact, how it was viewed and the problems it has could be DIRECTLY related to the reticence that has developed in regards to D&D TV series (not just this one, but others that were also in development).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's still viewed as a nerds game, despite how popular it is now

I don’t know were you are, but here the war is over and the nerds won.