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.

 

[Azzy]

Well, I'm sure there are at least 100 lists.

What I'm saying is Hasbro/WotC can follow the crowd...again. And make the Y7(despite whatever rating label it gets) kids fantasy show. Maybe it will be a Drizzit show. So they can have endless CGI Spam of Drizzt swinging his scimitars around and around and around...and dancing...and cool "matrix moves". And....just like the novels....Drizzt will 'tap' orcs with his scimitar and they will fall down and go to sleep, Drizzt will cut the rope holding a chandelier and it will fall on an orc and knock over an apple cart and all the orcs will trip and fall on the apples. Just like the novels!

And sure some people will like it. Some people will watch anything that says "D&D". Some people will watch any fantasy. Some people will watch anything new.

And some people will love how Drizzit and his cat do the goofy "run away" from an owlbear...just like Shaggy and Scooby-Do!

But it won't really light a fire...or get much attention. Even more so from the general folks. It will get a season or two...maybe....and then get canceled.

OR they can make a more unique show that really, really, really stands out. And a big part of that is them looking right at all the under 18 out there and saying "this show is not for you".

But to be fair...they can release and animated D&D adventures cartoon for the kids...

This is hilarious.

 

[Azzy]

The Pacific Theatre of WW2? For babies.

Not edgelordy enough.

 

[bloodtide]

Plenty of shows have plenty of drama, action, violence without being R rated. I see no reason a D&D show needs to be the TV show version of Serving Private Ryan or another Game of Thones.

Ok....see

All the business folk, executives, money people, lawyers, writers , produces, showrunners, and or anyone involved with the D&D TV show who are just "general folk", plus all the people that "played D&D a couple of times and walk around telling everyone they are The D&D Expert: All, ALL of these people now and forever think of D&D as a kids game and a kids show. This is locked in.

So, yes, even if the show has an "offical" label of PG-13 or whatever. Everyone....everyone involved with the show will only...only...ever be thinking Y7.

So when they are drafting a scene they are not trying to make a good show or a grimdark show or anything else. They are locked into Y7. So someone will say "Jon the Bard dumps over an apple basket and all the orcs trip on the apples!" and everyone...everyone...will say "THAT is the best and greatest D&D scene 4Ever!"

Because they will be locked into the idea that a D&D show must be made for all the Y7 kids!

 

[Hussar]

Ok....see

All the business folk, executives, money people, lawyers, writers , produces, showrunners, and or anyone involved with the D&D TV show who are just "general folk", plus all the people that "played D&D a couple of times and walk around telling everyone they are The D&D Expert: All, ALL of these people now and forever think of D&D as a kids game and a kids show. This is locked in.

So, yes, even if the show has an "offical" label of PG-13 or whatever. Everyone....everyone involved with the show will only...only...ever be thinking Y7.

So when they are drafting a scene they are not trying to make a good show or a grimdark show or anything else. They are locked into Y7. So someone will say "Jon the Bard dumps over an apple basket and all the orcs trip on the apples!" and everyone...everyone...will say "THAT is the best and greatest D&D scene 4Ever!"

Because they will be locked into the idea that a D&D show must be made for all the Y7 kids!

Wow... if only there was a Dungeons and Dragons branded show that wasn't Y7 that proved that this is a load of tosh...

Watch The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 1 | Prime Video

They're rowdy, they're ragtag, they're misfits turned mercenaries for hire. Vox Machina is more interested in easy money and cheap ale than actually protecting the realm. But when the kingdom is threatened by evil, this boisterous crew realizes that they are the only ones capable of restoring...

www.amazon.com

 

[Parmandur]

Wow... if only there was a Dungeons and Dragons branded show that wasn't Y7 that proved that this is a load of tosh...

Watch The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 1 | Prime Video

They're rowdy, they're ragtag, they're misfits turned mercenaries for hire. Vox Machina is more interested in easy money and cheap ale than actually protecting the realm. But when the kingdom is threatened by evil, this boisterous crew realizes that they are the only ones capable of restoring...

www.amazon.com

That's a cartoon. Cartoons are all for babies. Not for definitely secure, totally mature adults. Only R rated live action stuff will do for real adults. Who are totally not just 3 babies in a trenchcoat trying to pass for an adult.

 

[Clint_L]

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The books aren't so easy to be adapted, but some Drizzt's novels were published as comics.

If it is a cartoon show for children, they will start a new IP, with original characters.

The end of animation only for children ended: not only anime but Ricky & Morty, Futurama, Family Guy, Solar Opposites.. and if you want characters doing nasty things then go to rule34 web.

And there is a difference between the novel telling Drizzt beheads two goblins and this being showed in the screen.

Operation Petticoat was a comedy movie set in WWII and for the current standards it is for all audiences. I watched it when I was a little child. There are deaths in "Jurassic Park", but we don't say it was too violent.

Joe Dante's "Gremlins" is comedy and horror. Some characters are killed but not too violent. The 1987 "the monster squad" was horror action with some victims, but not too much.

I could watch "Troubles in Little China" before I was 13.

A different thing would be telling the evil necromancer has killed all the children in a orphanage to turned them into zombies, and in the fight one of the "heroes" saying "nobody will miss them", as if the writter was a psychopath in the real life. Sentient characters shouldn't hurt underage victims.

It has to be +7 or +10 if Hasbro wants a new generation of fans. Titles for young adults can arrive later.

* Hasbro can't lose the control, because then the writters would sacrifice the coherence with the rules, for example the number of times Doric the druid can use "wild shape", or if druids can shapesift into owlbears.

 

[Oofta]

Ok....see

All the business folk, executives, money people, lawyers, writers , produces, showrunners, and or anyone involved with the D&D TV show who are just "general folk", plus all the people that "played D&D a couple of times and walk around telling everyone they are The D&D Expert: All, ALL of these people now and forever think of D&D as a kids game and a kids show. This is locked in.

So, yes, even if the show has an "offical" label of PG-13 or whatever. Everyone....everyone involved with the show will only...only...ever be thinking Y7.

So when they are drafting a scene they are not trying to make a good show or a grimdark show or anything else. They are locked into Y7. So someone will say "Jon the Bard dumps over an apple basket and all the orcs trip on the apples!" and everyone...everyone...will say "THAT is the best and greatest D&D scene 4Ever!"

Because they will be locked into the idea that a D&D show must be made for all the Y7 kids!

This is such a strange hill to die on. First, being a cartoon doesn't mean it's going to be a kiddie show by any means. Somebody already mention Vox Machina, but there's also series like Invincible which is definitely not a show for little kids (it's rated 18+). For that matter you could go old school with Heavy Metal (rated R).

But there is no way they'd be "locked in to Y7", this doesn't have to be The Smurfs Go Dungeon Crawling. We've come a long way since the D&D cartoon. For their target audience I could see something like the animated series The Bad Batch, which is rated PG while still having plenty of violence and death (including party member death) because it deals with war. Admittedly when it shows someone dying there's not a lot of blood, characters get injured badly but they aren't dripping with blood and gore. Then again, I don't get overly graphic in my D&D games very often either, I don't think you need it.

What they need is to show interesting party dynamics, drama and action. You can do all of that without it being rated R. Throw in some adult themes and jokes that go over the heads of the younger members of the audience like the really old cartoons like the original Bugs Bunny did and kids will still enjoy it.

 

[Hussar]

I mean Star Wars has never been graphic.

 

[Oofta]

I mean Star Wars has never been graphic.

Almost as if you don't need graphic to be successful.