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.

 

[Jaeger]

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

So we are in agreement that they first greenlit the D&D show.

Then they canceled it.

Fantastic.

 

[Oofta]

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

American TV age ratings are really strange IMHO. People get killed left and right, scenes of torture, adult themes and you get a TV-14 like Star Trek Discovery. Say the f*** word or show partial nudity and suddenly it's TV-MA like Ted Lasso. The former is action packed drama while the latter is overall an upbeat comedy with nary a single death scene and definitely no torture.

My only point is that TV age ratings mean very little about the actual content of the stories once you get past shows that are obviously targeted at young children. I see no reason a D&D show could not have a PG or TV-14 rating.

 

[bedir than]

So we are in agreement that they first greenlit the D&D show.

Then they canceled it.

Fantastic.

Sure.
But the reasons had nothing to do with D&D.
Paramount is only supporting their 14 billion dollar brands where they control production and licensing. They cancelled a lot of show, without regard for how popular the concept was.

 

[Umbran]

American TV age ratings are really strange IMHO.

American sensibilities are strange. But so are everyone else's sensibilities - they are just differently strange.

What, you thought cultural taboos would be rational?

I see no reason a D&D show could not have a PG or TV-14 rating.

Honor Among Thieves has a PG-13, and was a lot of fun to watch, for me. So yes, I thoroughly agree with you there.

 

[Jaeger]

Sure.
But the reasons had nothing to do with D&D.
Paramount is only supporting their 14 billion dollar brands where they control production and licensing. They cancelled a lot of show, without regard for how popular the concept was.

And here I was thinking studios could only dream of having such a relevant IP:

It's the 7th most watched film on Paramount+ this year. It's also a top 50 purchase on iTunes.
Studios dream of having films that are relevant more than a year after release.

The dream must not have delivered enough ROI for them to get rid of everything that they did not have total control over...

 

[Zardnaar]

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

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

Navigate the TV landscape with precision. Examine audience viewing behaviors across key TV delivery platforms in a monthly macroanalysis.

www.nielsen.com

There's feelings and there's data.

You're to obsessed with top xyz. What % of market share does Paramount+ have? Last I saw it was tiny. There's a huge drop off out of the top 3 or 4 iirc.

 

[bedir than]

You're to obsessed with top xyz. What % of market share does Paramount+ have? Last I saw it was tiny. There's a huge drop off out of the top 3 or 4 iirc.

The percentage of market share is listed in the link.
And there's not the huge drop off you describe, because you are stuck in a prepandemic mindset when it comes to movies and streaming.

 

[GrimCo]

The percentage of market share is listed in the link.
And there's not the huge drop off you describe, because you are stuck in a prepandemic mindset when it comes to movies and streaming.

Paramount+ has 1% of streaming share. Share drop from no2 to no3 is 50% ( from 7.6 to 3.2).

What i got from wathcing podcasts with film workers, streaming pays peanuts compared to what movies used to make from vhs/dvd sales. Back in ye olden days, movies could become profitable trough home sales. Today, if movie flops in theaters, they flopped, streamings don't bring enough to move them into green.

I can't recall streaming services ever reporting how much money movies made trough them.

 

[Parmandur]

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

Those don't spell to how adult a story is, though. David Lynch's film Straight Story is G rated, because it has nothing objectionable to anyone. But it is a fully adult story.

 

[bloodtide]

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.

Well, note we are only talking about people that like hour long drama shows. As the "general public" will always love Football and who will be the next Batchlorette then all other TV shows combined.

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.

And again, this is about the vast viewing public...not just a small group of people.

And you bring up the point again....many someones will tell you you don't "need" to see something. And it is simple: if they say you don't "need" it, you do. You can see X because they say it is ok for you to see it, and you can't see x, Y or Z ever as they say it is not ok.

Game of Thrones was full of stuff they endlessly tell you you don't "need" to see....and yet huge numbers of people liked and watched the show.