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]

Not sure this really "proves" anything. You want a show and a character randomly says "he failed a saving throw" and put a lot into that random comment.

Ok, but the adults don't take fantasy seriously.

Why would we expect a D&D movie or TV show to take D&D more seriously than Gary Gygax? Though, I mean, the filmmakers for Honor Among Thieves kind of did take the fantasy more seriously than Gygax did, now that I think of it.

What, in all of the history of D&D, a game made for Middle and highschoolers, would suggest TV-MA or R material?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe after "Avengers: Endgame" the audience was too "burnt" for the epic fantasy.

Other point we shouldn't foget, the "isekai" anime genre, a dangerous freenemy. This has got its own style. For example here in our Western culture we are used to the confrotation between different members of a team, and Guardians of the Galaxy could be a good example, but in the Oriental culture they would rather the leader orders and the rest obey because they would rather "harmony and good vibes".

Technically the 80's cartoon was an "isekai" but the game-rules are radically different now. My fear is is a Japanese studio was hired by Hasbro for a D&D anime, the influence of isekai tropes were too strong. D&D is not where the heroes are watching a holographic screen with the stats about the monsters, or the main hero is followed by a harem of monster girls... ok, this is possible in your tabletop.

A D&D show needs good characters and a good plot. Characters from BG3 are very popular now, but we are talking of a project worked for years. The writters enjoyed enough time.

* I imagine the Dragonlance serie as a 80's style animation, yes, like the failed movie.

* There are several fantasy sagas in the last years, and someones have been adapted to action-live productions, but they haven't been so sucessful like Game of Thrones. And even the spin-off of this hasn't reached the same level.

* If you want a D&D isekai about somebody who doesn't want living dangerously but enjoying an ordinary life, then the Radiant Citadel would be the right place.

* Any new about the webcomic whose main character is Drizzt's daughter?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why would we expect a D&D movie or TV show to take D&D more seriously than Gary Gygax? Though, I mean, the filmmakers for Honor Among Thieves kind of did take the fantasy more seriously than Gygax did, now that I think of it.

What, in all of the history of D&D, a game made for Middle and highschoolers, would suggest TV-MA or R material?

Wada ya mean? Mimics, beholders and gelatinous cubes are incredibly serious monster design!

 

[MNblockhead]

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.

I wouldn't try to peg it to 1400. It is a fantasy world and way to anachronistic to try to map to IRL history. And the level of social and technical advancement varies greatly from one setting to another, one area in a setting to another, and even one adventure to another. Further, through nearly all of human history you couldn't just kill someone without repercussions. That's what, to me, makes D&D seem more like a western with adventering out on in the lawless frontier. And adventure's niche is in the wilderness, newly settled borderland areas, in failed states, in the midst of warring states or dysfunctional areas. The time period you try to map it to matter much less. Giving it a medieval, renaissance, or age of sail veneer, just puts it far enough into the past to take us out of the world we live in.

I think it is a mistake to be focused on making a "D&D" movie or TV series and we should be thinking more in terms of making a Forgotten Realms, or Dragonlance, or Ravnica, or Eberron show. I'd prefer Ravnica or Erberron in terms of the world building, but FR or Dragonlance has more lore to draw upon. I just worry that at this point of time, it will be hard to distinguish FR and Dragonlance from the many other fantasy films and shows.

 

[MNblockhead]

I gave the reasons above in a post. People on these forums OBVIOUSLY would not want to accept these reasons as most think the D&D movie is the best thing since sliced pie and is exactly representative of what D&D is to everyone.

You must be participating in different forums than I do. I certainly have not seen many people touting DaD:HAT as "the best thing since sliced pie." I mean, I really liked the movie and have watched it three times but I don't hold it up as some great cinematic achievement. But it was solidly entertaining and likely would have done much better if released under better conditions. It is a solid, fun, family-friendly fantasy film.

The thing is though, that it didn't represent what people felt D&D was, ([edit clarification: General audiences] or if it did, represented aspects of fantasy they had NO INTEREST in [edit: Clarification - General audiences who are not players and do not play 5e]. It failed to utilize the D&D name to actually appeal to draw enough audiences in to make a big enough profit to warrant a sequel (currently, things could always happen in the future...ala bladerunner for example).

I doubt that the General Audiences care or know enough about D&D to have much of a preconception other than "fantasy." In my personal experience, those I've seen the movie with or who I know who have seen the move that don't know anything about D&D other than it is a fantasy game, did not express any thoughts on "that didn't represent what I expected a D&D movie to be." If anything, the opposite. It had magic, dragons, sword fights, a "dungeon" (well, the underdark, not that a general audience is going to distinguish the two). If they went to see a D&D movie and it was science-fiction story with spaceships and laser guns, yeah, they may have been confused. I'm just deeply skeptical that we can blame the movie's lack of greater success on it not meeting the "general audience's" expectations.

That combined with how upset many were regarding the OGL fiasco meant that there was some unhappy news about profits and income with its release (and not just the theatrical, despite how many point out how well it did with streaming, it obviously did NOT gain enough from that to warrant a blue lighting of a sequel).

I'm doubtful it would have made any difference if all the people who knew about the OGL fiasco and cared enough to boycott the movie had instead seen the movies and promoted it through word of mouth.

Given the conditions at the time, if they took the same story, and stretched it out into a streaming TV series, it likely would have done much better. Even with the same overall story arch, tone, and incongruous special effects.

 

[MNblockhead]

Ok, but the adults don't take fantasy seriously.

Game of Thrones proves that this need not be the case.

My wife turns up her nose at fantasy and had no interest in GoT until some friends and co-workers were raving about it. She started watching when it was well into its second season and was immediately addicted after the first episode of the first season. Most of her friends and co-workers are not into fantasy or any geek media.

GoT was one of the few (in the US) modern shows that became watercooler conversation material and is one of the few modern shows to have a wide enough audience for there to be part of the wider shared culture. It is up there with Lost and the Sopranos in my experience.

Sorry, I can agree to disagree on some of your other points, but take of yours that today's adults won't watch fantasy is patently absurd. Unless, I'm completely missing your point on what you mean by taking it seriously. I mean, I don't think the mass of any audience is consuming movies and TV shows as a high art. They just want to be entertained.

 

[MNblockhead]

What, in all of the history of D&D, a game made for Middle and highschoolers, would suggest TV-MA or R material?

There is room for both.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is room for both.

Room for, yes. But it’s far from typical (unless the R rating is for crude jokes).

 

[GrimCo]

Game of Thrones proves that this need not be the case.

Yes, GoT has set the bar as benchmark fantasy tv show.

My wife turns up her nose at fantasy and had no interest in GoT until some friends and co-workers were raving about it. She started watching when it was well into its second season and was immediately addicted after the first episode of the first season. Most of her friends and co-workers are not into fantasy or any geek media.

Mine too. And she was one that got hooked on GoT first then prodded me to start watching it. While she usually finds fantasy not that interesting, she liked GoT very much. Oh, she also liked Conan movie with Momoa. GoT was first and foremost, good tv drama, with interesting characters, good plot, political intrigues, power struggles, love affairs etc. It more akin to regular historic period drama shows ( Tudors, The Borgias etc) than anything else. Fantasy elements are there, but even non fantasy fans can enjoy show.

GoT was one of the few (in the US) modern shows that became watercooler conversation material and is one of the few modern shows to have a wide enough audience for there to be part of the wider shared culture. It is up there with Lost and the Sopranos in my experience.

Not only in US, outside US also. But, as I said above, it was good serious tv drama. It was show for adult audience, with adult themes and interesting to wide mainstream audience. For show to be success, it needs to resonate with casuals, not fans.

Also, someone mentioned Godzilla minus one as show with good effects for modest budget. Sure, watched it this weekend, effects were good. But, visuals are not only special effects. Visuals are: scenography, costumes, makeup, lighting, photography. Special effects (practical and CGI) are just portion of it. And to be honest, Dr Who always looked cheapo and low budget (not that it's a bad thing, one of my fav sf shows, Red Dwarf, looks very cheap, but it's funny as hell, go Brits).

 

[bedir than]

In today's Paramount annual meeting one of the topics was how all 14 of their billion dollar brands is wholly owned by Paramount.

So with TMNT, which had lower revenue and worse streaming than D&D: HAT, the billion in toy sales helped Paramount more than it did the toy partner. The opposite of how HAT boosted D&D book and paraphernalia sales.