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.

 

[GrimCo]

First rule of visual media is - show, don't tell. TV-MA gives more room to actually show what's happening. Yes, you can tell good compelling story with fade to blacks, allusions via dialogues and similar tricks to keep that rating down, you are essentially nixing main appeal of visual media. Don't talk how bad Vecna is. Show us what atrocities Vecna did. Provoke emotional response via visuals. Make us hate that vilain cause we've, as audience, seen what heroes have seen. We now have emotional bonding, we cheer hero and hate bad guy.

 

[Parmandur]

First rule of visual media is - show, don't tell. TV-MA gives more room to actually show what's happening. Yes, you can tell good compelling story with fade to blacks, allusions via dialogues and similar tricks to keep that rating down, you are essentially nixing main appeal of visual media. Don't talk how bad Vecna is. Show us what atrocities Vecna did. Provoke emotional response via visuals. Make us hate that vilain cause we've, as audience, seen what heroes have seen. We now have emotional bonding, we cheer hero and hate bad guy.

Yet plenty of film makers were able to show and not tell in prortraying sophisticated adult stories between the early 30s and 1968.

 

[Oofta]

First rule of visual media is - show, don't tell. TV-MA gives more room to actually show what's happening. Yes, you can tell good compelling story with fade to blacks, allusions via dialogues and similar tricks to keep that rating down, you are essentially nixing main appeal of visual media. Don't talk how bad Vecna is. Show us what atrocities Vecna did. Provoke emotional response via visuals. Make us hate that vilain cause we've, as audience, seen what heroes have seen. We now have emotional bonding, we cheer hero and hate bad guy.

What you don't see, what you only imagine or glimpse, is often worse than what you are shown. Show the aftereffects of what was done by survivors telling you, show the smoking ruin and so on. There are many ways to do it that don't require explicit gore.

 

[Oofta]

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.

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.

Not every show needs to be Game of Thrones. It was successful because it had good writers and had good source material. Meanwhile Avatar as well as virtually all of the most successful movies released were rated PG-13. A quick glance at the top 50 show the Joker movie as the only R rated one in the list.

That and the majority of the the ratings of the most watched TV shows are, as I said above are TV-14 or less. You keep making these claims that have no basis whatsoever. I don't care what your personal preference is, most people don't share it.

This is going nowhere, have a good one.

 

[Hussar]

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.

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.

Appeal to free speech? Really?

 

[mamba]

Yet plenty of film makers were able to show and not tell in prortraying sophisticated adult stories between the early 30s and 1968.

I don’t think that you can make the case that everything created during a time before the ratings existed therefore can be categorized as PG… not that the rating has much to do with the maturity of the story anyway

 

[Hussar]

I don’t think that you can make the case that everything created during a time before the ratings existed therefore can be categorized as PG… not that the rating has much to do with the maturity of the story anyway

But at the same time we should be looking at the rating system as it is today. There is a world of difference between Tv-14 and Tv-7.

So far, all the arguments for a DnD branded show to be M rated are spurious and grounded in nothing but smoke.

 

[mamba]

But at the same time we should be looking at the rating system as it is today. There is a world of difference between Tv-14 and Tv-7.

So far, all the arguments for a DnD branded show to be M rated are spurious and grounded in nothing but smoke.

I agree, I do not see any reason why it would have to be MA, I am not even sure it improves the story at all rather than just allowing it to show more blood and gore

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

Steaming losing money hand over fist. There's to wayvto make money streaming.

1. Be Netflix.

2. Supply content. In an arms rave be Sony.

Paramount+ probably won't be around to much longer.

 

[TiQuinn]

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!

HOLY naughty word THIS SOUNDS AWESOME!