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 mean Star Wars has never been graphic.

OK, all joking aside, but Star Wars is actually a kids movie, per George Lucas. Similar to how D&D is a kids game. But still, serious and mature adults can participate in and enjoy both just fine.

Annie Hall is for babies, though.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's remember Conan the barbarian was a fantasy saga for mature readers... but when Hasbro wanted to sell action figures, the cartoon show of Conan was for all audiences, and we can't blame them. It was their money, then their choices.

Maybe we could be combats against bloodless monsters: constructs, plants, elementals or unholy creatures that disappear like smoke.

I wonder if Hasbro produced its own cartoon shows, then they could adapt IPs by 3PPs, for example Humblewood or Batlezoo.

Other option could be an animated reimagination of "mystic knights of Tir Na Nog". Hasbro is the current owner of this IP, just like the "Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones". This is an interesting joker card, because officially they aren't yet within D&D brand, and then Hasbro could talk with other cinematographic companies.

The future "Bloomburrow" of Magic: the Gathering seems to be added to the D&D multiverse, but also with the idea of to be adapted to some animated production style "Kung-Fu Panda". Maybe Witchlight will be the future "new" setting, and easy to be adapted for a child-friendly cartoon.

Now the first step should be creating a loyal audience, and the milking should be later.

Today the isekai anime is a very popular genre, and not always this is linked with mature content.

In the cartoon "Prince Valiant" some times there were deaths but blood was not showed. The "Jhonny Quest" from the 60's is other example of cartoon for children where there are deaths but blood wasn't showed.

 

[Hussar]

Conan was written for teens. It was published in a magazine meant for teen readers. Howard was not writing for a mature audience.

Weird Tales was not even remotely considered a “mature” theme publication.

 

[Oofta]

So the difference between a kiddie show and mature is whether they show blood spatter? I guess I just don't see that much distinction. There are plenty of shows where people are killed that rarely show blood other than when the protagonist is wounded and they have that red splotch on their shirt.

There's a lot of things that you can just fade to black on, things that happen off-screen that can keep a show more PG if that's your target audience. You don't need to show someone's innards with blood spurting after they've been hit with a sword. It's the stories and group dynamics that matter to me.

 

[Alzrius]

Conan was written for teens. It was published in a magazine meant for teen readers.

I may only be a dabbler where the old pulps are concerned, but I've found nothing to suggest that Weird Tales was "meant" for teen readers (save for people purporting that lurid and sensationalist stories and artwork are understood to necessarily be directed at teenagers, which says more about the people making those claims than about Weird Tales).

 

[bedir than]

2: Paramount+ canceled the D&D tv series that they had previously green-lit.

They didn't cancel just D&D. Ignoring that they cancelled every project where they didn't control the toy rights is a choice.

And paramounts share of the streaming market is tiny. It's essentially a participation trophy.

While this was true five years ago, it isn't now. Paramount's streaming networks are top 6 or 7 combined (rounding hides this a bit).

The Gauge

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There's feelings and there's data.

 

[bloodtide]

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.

Cartoon is kids stuff. Can you have adult MA animation...yes. But still nearly all cartoons are kids stuff. It is like they are stuck in a rut.

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.

Again, back to my point. Yes you can have stuff like death in Pg13. They do lots of unseen violence and lots is left unseen. And you get the classic bloodless gunshot, dagger toss, zap or whatever...and the target falls down and closes their eyes.

But to have really interesting dynamics, drama and action....you have to go adult. Because even if you suggest something "bad", you have the constraint of "must be Y7".

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Cartoon is kids stuff. Can you have adult MA animation...yes. But still nearly all cartoons are kids stuff. It is like they are stuck in a rut.

Again, back to my point. Yes you can have stuff like death in Pg13. They do lots of unseen violence and lots is left unseen. And you get the classic bloodless gunshot, dagger toss, zap or whatever...and the target falls down and closes their eyes.

But to have really interesting dynamics, drama and action....you have to go adult. Because even if you suggest something "bad", you have the constraint of "must be Y7".

Man I disagree with you so much. Everything you have said here is wrong.

Your view is very childish.

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

 

[Oofta]

Cartoon is kids stuff. Can you have adult MA animation...yes. But still nearly all cartoons are kids stuff. It is like they are stuck in a rut.

Again, back to my point. Yes you can have stuff like death in Pg13. They do lots of unseen violence and lots is left unseen. And you get the classic bloodless gunshot, dagger toss, zap or whatever...and the target falls down and closes their eyes.

But to have really interesting dynamics, drama and action....you have to go adult. Because even if you suggest something "bad", you have the constraint of "must be Y7".

You go from "cartoons are kids stuff" to a segue that they "can have gore*" to "you have to have a grimdark campaign with explicit gore and [I assume] sexually explicit content" to be interesting. That may be true for you. It is not true for the majority of the viewing public.

The majority of popular 21st century TV shows have either been TV-PG or TV-14. Most campaigns I've been involved with over the decades would also fall into that TV-14 or less category, we don't need Game of Thrones levels of sex and violence to be a good show. You seem to be taking the game, and your personal preference, far too seriously.

*Again, Invincible is rated TV-MA for a reason, as is The Legend of Vox Machina.

 

[Umbran]

So the difference between a kiddie show and mature is whether they show blood spatter?

The difference is kind of in all the things that make the difference between G and MA ratings.

TV Parental Guidelines - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org