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

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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.
 

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Darryl Mott

Darryl Mott

So, juat so we as super mature absolutely actually adults are clear, the following are all strictly kids movies, and not serious artistic considerations of the human condition like Robocop or Rambo 2:

  • Patton
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • The Sting
  • The Last Emperor
  • Driving Miss Daisy
  • CODA
  • Apollo 13
  • Rocky
  • Chariots of Fire
  • Pride & Prejudice
  • The Straight Story
  • literally every movie made between the early 30's and 1968
 

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So, juat so we as super mature absolutely actually adults are clear, the following are all strictly kids movies, and not serious artistic considerations of the human condition like Robocop or Rambo 2:

  • Patton
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • The Sting
  • The Last Emperor
  • Driving Miss Daisy
  • CODA
  • Apollo 13
  • Rocky
  • Chariots of Fire
  • Pride & Prejudice
  • The Straight Story
  • literally every movie made between the early 30's and 1968
Speaking for myself, I'd say much of Shrek was designed for adults. I remember seeing it in a theater and there were some tweens sitting in front of us that gave us weird looks at about a third of the jokes in the movie that went right over their heads. I have no problem admitting I enjoyed the movie, or maybe I'm just immature. ;)

You don't need graphic depictions of sex and violence that gets you an R rating to be an adult movie, nor do you have to avoid violence and mature topics altogether. If we did we wouldn't have most TV shows. But to add to your movie list I rather doubt 2001 A Space Odyssey was targeted to the young 'uns.
 


If it is an action-live production then it could be a rating like Xena. There were deaths in the Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo but this was "softer". "Charmed" about the witch sisters had got a lot of murders, but usually these were without showed blood. "Buffy the vampire slayer" was for young adults, and there were many murders, but not too gore.

If it is a cartoon, it could be +7 or +10, with some deaths but not too violent. Or maybe different versions, one of them more censored.

If "Birthright" was an action-live teleserie, I imagine something like the Brazilian soap-opera "Deus salve o Rei", but with more FX, level Xena. How would be Birthright like a novel style "Court of Thorn and Roses" or "the Glass Throne"?


I imagine a new D&D cartoon with a vintage style, like the trailer of the videogame mythforce.


* Years ago I listened in the news about the old episode of Sesame Street couldn't be allowed by the current standards of censorship, but I can't find any source in internet.
 


Speaking for myself, I'd say much of Shrek was designed for adults. I remember seeing it in a theater and there were some tweens sitting in front of us that gave us weird looks at about a third of the jokes in the movie that went right over their heads. I have no problem admitting I enjoyed the movie, or maybe I'm just immature. ;)

You don't need graphic depictions of sex and violence that gets you an R rating to be an adult movie, nor do you have to avoid violence and mature topics altogether. If we did we wouldn't have most TV shows. But to add to your movie list I rather doubt 2001 A Space Odyssey was targeted to the young 'uns.
What, a balanced, nuanced, and mature take???

2001 is a babu movie, there is literally a giant space baby to distract children.
 

No. It is not. You are simply wrong here.
You can watch whatever you want to watch. Most adults want at least TV 14, but more R, MA, or above shows to watch. And this is even more true for a "general audience".
ALL of which are made for teens. Temple of Doom was never R rated. Poltergeist was PG. Gremlins, PG. Nothing you just listed was R rated.
Did you miss where I was listing PG movies from Back in the Day, to show they are not like modern PG movies?
ROTFLMAO

You really, really don't know what you're talking about. Like, at all.
Ok

Watch me use my Crystal Ball:

At some point they will make a D&D show. It will be lucky to even get a Pg-13 rating, as everyone will say "D&D is for kids" and they must "make a show for kids". Sure, they might try and spin it as fun for the whole family....but note that means fun for the kids only.

They will hire a D&D expert or two who "played D&D a couple times" and can "spell D&D". The D&D expert writer, will only think of "D&D must be about a quest". And everyone with the show will get locked into "D&D=quest". So with the small eight episodes, the writer will write a wacky, zany super PG D&D adventure quest movie, and then chop it down into eight parts.

The D&D group is sure to include something like a goofy bard, a strong female barbarian, a goofy wizard who can't spell, a strong female ranger/druid and a short actor to be a halfling fighter? who complains a lot. All the spellcasters will forget they have spells or something..except maybe once an episode. Most of the characters will have "cool" looking weapons....that they mostly don't use. And when they do, you can be sure it will be "taps" and just "knocking foes down".

So episode one is the lovable bard...cheating at a card game and gets caught. There will be a fun romp to catch the bard. The bard will not attack with a weapon at all and will not cast a single spell.....but will do things like put a bucket over a guards head or drop some banana peals to make the guards fall. "Somehow" the bard will bump into each of the main characters, and "cliffhanger they all get caught.

E2. Saved by the King. The world will be destroyed by the Dragon of Doom in 30 days....unless someone puts the Gem of Gygax back together. And only the wacky group can do this...for no reason. They have to not fight there way to a sage...who tells them the Gem was broken into four parts and scattered. This gives a nice arc for E3-E6 as each episode they go to a set place: the desert, the far north, the underdark and the tropics, to get the four gem parts. And for each spot...there will be some wacky zany adventure. Like in the tropics they will find a con man using the Gem part to win card games.....the COULD just walk over and kill the dumb con man...you know to save the world from the dragon of doom....but they won't. Instead they will come up with a wacky paln to play cards with the con man and (cheat) and "win" the Gem part. Adventure!

E7. they get back to the king and give him the Gem of Gygax....and surprise, What a Twist...the king is a bad guy! He summoned the dragon and now will absorb it's power to Rule the World! Or um Destroy the world? Or um, it does not matter. The poor group has a "we ave to stop him...um...because the story plot says so" moment and makes a wacky plan.

E8. They go after the king. Lots of turkey leg bonks, apples tossed to trip foes and other such PG "action" . Then they trick the king with some Scooby Do like plan.....the king screams "no, I would have done it if it was not for these medeling kids!" And the Gem, King and Dragon all go "poof" to make a happy ending.


Brace yourselves...
 

If it is an action-live production then it could be a rating like Xena. There were deaths in the Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo but this was "softer". "Charmed" about the witch sisters had got a lot of murders, but usually these were without showed blood. "Buffy the vampire slayer" was for young adults, and there were many murders, but not too gore.
.

Good grief. Xena? Hercules? Buffy? Can we get some examples that aren’t thirty years out of date?

Ffs, Battlestar Galactica wasn’t M. And that had genocide and lots of death.

The Expanse was TV-14. That had LOTS of violence and nudity.

This idea that anything not R rated is “for kids” is just flat out wrong.
 



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