D&D General What Are Dragonlance's Weis & Hickman, and Actor Manganiello Cooking Up?

Actor and D&D superfan Joe Manganiello and Dragonlance co-author Tracy Hickman have both posted a cryptic image on their respective social medias showing themselves, along with Margaret Weis standing together in front of a large dragon statue at Wizards of the Coast's offices in Renton, Washington.

Hickman's image was accompanied by the words "Something is coming...", and in Manganiello's case "WE'RE BACK", to which Wizards of the Coast replied "Welcome back to the table!" A later photograph from Weis also included Laura Hickman and Dan Ayoub, who was named head of Dungeons & Dragons back in July of this year.

The posts have sparked speculation as to what they might mean, with guesses ranging from a revival of Manganiello's Dragonlance TV show project--which was no longer in development after he stated in February 2024 that "Dragonlance is not a property WotC are interested in developing further currently"--to a new Dragonlance-based D&D adventure.

Weis and Hickman co-wrote a new Dragonlance trilogy in recent years following a legal dust-up with Wizards of the Coast which was ultimately dismissed without prejudice, so it would seem that any bad blood from the dispute has been left in the past.

The question now remains--what are they all cooking up this time?

 

[Parmandur]

I think you need to build to a general fantasy size then. Animation might have a more suitable budget even if it has a lower ceiling of audience. A live action series would be tough if it needs a lot of CGI.

Problem with WoT is its running concurrently with RoP. Despite folks preferring WoT after its second season, RoP was too big to fail after Amazon dropped a billion bucks on the rights alone. So, they cancelled the better show in favor of the bigger name. The two shows likely would continue to cannibalize each other.

In defense of fantasy, the only genre that seems to have no limit is children shows and police procedurals.

I mean, you are not wrong as to why Rings of Power won out (though it is also ratings, more people watched RoP and it had better retention than WoT between seasons), but for my money it was both the better show and the better adaptation even.

 

[timbannock]

Animation and D&D are both in very different places from 2008. There have been multiple successful animated series based on RPGs. And doing it as a live action TV series, that would require a heck of a budget for the special effects, what with all the dragons and draconians.

Maybe Netflix still has those Skeksis costumes from The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance laying around. They could make good draconians.

(In all seriousness, I agree that animated is by far the more likely format.)

 

[payn]

I mean, you are not wrong as to why Rings of Power won out (though it is also ratings, more people watched RoP and it had better retention than WoT between seasons), but for my money it was both the better show and the better adaptation even.

Where are you getting the retention numbers? RoP after first season had some of the worst retention numbers in streaming history. (albeit probably the biggest buzz in stream franchise history)

 

[darjr]

The Hasbro investor meeting talked about D&D working in four “shows”, reportedly.

 

[Reynard]

The Hasbro investor meeting talked about D&D working in four “shows”, reportedly.

I continue to be shocked that there is not a Drizzt (or however you spell it) show.

I also continue to be sad that there is not a Arcane level quality Eberron animated series.

 

[timbannock]

Also worth noting Secret Level had a D&D episode that was pretty neat. D&D licensing out for animation makes even more sense in light of that series, which was overall extremely well received.

 

[Parmandur]

Where are you getting the retention numbers? RoP after first season had some of the worst retention numbers in streaming history. (albeit probably the biggest buzz in stream franchise history)

There is plenty out there about how successful Rings of Power has been for Amazon (they are actively happy with it), but in terms of direct comparison here is from the Wikipedia page:

"Parrot Analytics calculated that the series brought in $367 million in subscriber revenue for Prime Video by the end of 2024. This was ahead of fellow Prime Video fantasy series The Wheel of Time ($360 million), which premiered a year before The Rings of Power in 2021. However, The Wheel of Time was considered to have a higher return on investment due to its smaller budget at around $80 million for its first season.[147]"

So interestingly Wheel of Time was pretty comparatively successful: so you are probavly correct the investment is the main reason. But, both were successes for Amazon.

 

[Parmandur]

The Hasbro investor meeting talked about D&D working in four “shows”, reportedly.

I mean, WotC has decades worth of IP, and the game is literally an IP creating engine...ao ot has always made sense as a possibility.

 

[payn]

There is plenty out there about how successful Rings of Power has been for Amazon (they are actively happy with it), but in terms of direct comparison here is from the Wikipedia page:

"Parrot Analytics calculated that the series brought in $367 million in subscriber revenue for Prime Video by the end of 2024. This was ahead of fellow Prime Video fantasy series The Wheel of Time ($360 million), which premiered a year before The Rings of Power in 2021. However, The Wheel of Time was considered to have a higher return on investment due to its smaller budget at around $80 million for its first season.[147]"

So interestingly Wheel of Time was pretty comparatively successful: so you are probavly correct the investment is the main reason. But, both were successes for Amazon.

Yeah, and when folks ask why so much reality TV gets made it is because a 5 mill production likely gets a quarter of those numbers. A good ROI.

I suppose its both good and bad being that WoT got made at all. Though, im guessing the lesson networks will take is to not invest in two shows of a genre like fantasy at the same time.

 

[Dire Bare]

Wheel of Time alienated a large part of ghe book audience fairly aggressively, and made very strange adaptation choices.

I don't know if the Dragonlance audience would have the same reaction to changes, the quality of the original material is somewhat distinct in those two cases.

Did it though? Or did Wheel of Time alienate a LOUD portion of the fan base?

The show certainly didn't perform well enough for Amazon to continue with it, sadly IMO. I was really enjoying it!

I am hoping that this "news" means a live-action television adaptation of Chronicles, but . . . there are a lot of problematic elements that would likely be changed for TV . . . and there would be fan uproar as there was with Wheel of Time.