D&D Movie/TV Joe Manganiello: Dragonlance TV Show No Longer In Development

MockingBird · Feb 8, 2024

Joe also offered to buy Dragon Lance but his words were "they're not interested in developing Dragon Lance currently".

bedir than · Feb 8, 2024

MockingBird said:
Joe also offered to buy Dragon Lance but his words were "they're not interested in developing Dragon Lance currently".

Which doesn't make sense. Because if he buys it they aren't developing it.
If he licenses it, they can then develop it.
If they're developing it, they wouldn't sell it.

Zardnaar · Feb 8, 2024

Suspect movie might play into this as well.

TV show requires tons of millions from somewhere.

And it's been a long time since Dragonlance was relevant.

Shardstone · Feb 8, 2024

Dragonlance, IMO, was never a setting that would capture the imagine of post 2000s (and especially post 2010s) Fantasy youth OR adults who are just now coming into the Fantasy genre. In fact, most of the settings from AD&D fall into this category, IMO, with few exceptions.

Overall, what is Dragonlance offering?

+ A strange, almost alien take on Good vs Evil that attempts to mimic Law vs Chaos but falls woefully short

+ Uninspired races, such as the gully dwarves

+ The white savior trope in full effect (the "barbarian tribes" give birth to a white skinned, blue-eyed, blonde haired woman with Mormon-esque platinum discs that contain the true belief)

+ Literal decades of lore and stories that prevent new characters from joining the setting

It just doesn't sound appealing in any way, shape, or form for a new audience. This isn't to necessarily attack Dragonlance or to say that it's bad -- I cannot deny that it was incredibly influencial decades ago -- but those times have long since passed. Settings like the Forgotten Realms and Eberron at least add in new ideas (even if those aren't always popular) and are always open to outside input. As a young DM, I can't really find a way to get into Dragonlance without basically ignoring the vast majority of it so that I could actually run games.

And the Dragonlance board game was mid and unpopular. Not because war games aren't popular, but because it wasn't a very engaging board game. WotC needs to get serious about game design if it wants to get into the wargame market, because unlike TTRPGs, wargames live and die on their mechanics.

Shardstone · Feb 8, 2024

Parmandur said:
Seems thst he put a lot of energy into the project, and was getting good feedback from film industry people;

"What I had planned for the first season was mind blowing," Manganiello said, speaking about his plans for the series. "I just....I want to make [the Dragonlance show] because I want to see it and I just want to feel that excited and electric about something. The characters...like the casting, I have a look book with over 1,000 pages, but it's not what you expect. The design concepts I had for the world, for the armor, for the swords....I had a fresh take on what the dragons were going to look like, it was going to be nothing like anyone has ever seen...."

"Manganiello said that the script he prepared for a Dragonlance pilot was well-received by those outside of Hasbro and eOne. "The biggest fantasy literary agent in town, he said and these are his words and not mine, that it was the best fantasy pilot he had read since the original Game of Thrones," Manganiello said. "There was another executive that read it and said it was one of the best fantasy scripts he's ever read. I actually got an email just this morning from a producer who said it was awesome and that he wanted to send it to the rest of his company and hopes I develop another fantasy IP." "

"I didn't write a script that was terrible," Manganiello said. "Calls were made to say this is what you should be making, this is what you should be doing, but currently it is to no avail."

This is the real bummer, and it seems like Hasbro couldn't square Manganillo's vision for the setting with the poor sales. Maybe if they let him design the campaign and the aesthetics of the boardgame, it would have had a chance. This is what happens when people that aren't inspired by the setting (WotC) try to rehash and spit it out. It doesn't help that the creators of the setting came out with a very, very, very mid-tier book recently.

jerryrice4949 · Feb 8, 2024

Shardstone said:
Dragonlance, IMO, was never a setting that would capture the imagine of post 2000s (and especially post 2010s) Fantasy youth OR adults who are just now coming into the Fantasy genre. In fact, most of the settings from AD&D fall into this category, IMO, with few exceptions.

Overall, what is Dragonlance offering?

+ A strange, almost alien take on Good vs Evil that attempts to mimic Law vs Chaos but falls woefully short

+ Uninspired races, such as the gully dwarves

+ The white savior trope in full effect (the "barbarian tribes" give birth to a white skinned, blue-eyed, blonde haired woman with Mormon-esque platinum discs that contain the true belief)

+ Literal decades of lore and stories that prevent new characters from joining the setting

It just doesn't sound appealing in any way, shape, or form for a new audience. This isn't to necessarily attack Dragonlance or to say that it's bad -- I cannot deny that it was incredibly influencial decades ago -- but those times have long since passed. Settings like the Forgotten Realms and Eberron at least add in new ideas (even if those aren't always popular) and are always open to outside input. As a young DM, I can't really find a way to get into Dragonlance without basically ignoring the vast majority of it so that I could actually run games.

And the Dragonlance board game was mid and unpopular. Not because war games aren't popular, but because it wasn't a very engaging board game. WotC needs to get serious about game design if it wants to get into the wargame market, because unlike TTRPGs, wargames live and die on their mechanics.

Seems like a pretty biased take. It also offers a classic good vs evil, high sorcery tale involving dragons. A tale of friendship and navigating complicated relationships with personal struggles. Things most people can relate too on top of the high fantasy elements. I agree there are some less desirable aspects but those could be left out of any movie or tv show with no one missing or noticing. Not having Gully Dwarves would not detract from the greater story.

billd91 · Feb 8, 2024

Shardstone said:
Overall, what is Dragonlance offering?

+ A strange, almost alien take on Good vs Evil that attempts to mimic Law vs Chaos but falls woefully short

+ Uninspired races, such as the gully dwarves

+ The white savior trope in full effect (the "barbarian tribes" give birth to a white skinned, blue-eyed, blonde haired woman with Mormon-esque platinum discs that contain the true belief)

+ Literal decades of lore and stories that prevent new characters from joining the setting
.

Honestly, I don’t think any of those are issues because they’d likely never be noticeable (seriously, the take on good and evil?) or would be substantially modified in development. No, what Dragonlance has to offer is a conspiracy of evil dragons opposed by a rag-tag group of adventurers. And Legend of Vox Machina is already covering it for seasons 2 and 3.

Shardstone · Feb 8, 2024

jerryrice4949 said:
Seems like a pretty biased take. It also offers a classic good vs evil, high sorcery tale involving dragons. A tale of friendship and navigating complicated relationships with personal struggles. Things most people can relate too on top of the high fantasy elements. I agree there are some less desirable aspects but those could be left out of any movie or tv show with no one missing or noticing. Not having Gully Dwarves would not detract from the greater story.

I don't disagree that the elements you bring up could be polished and made the centerpiece of an interesting Dragonlance universe. But I think Dragonlance, as is, presents itself as an antiquated idea where the gods decide to kill the world because "Good is too powerful." Though it seems like a minor nitpick, the language used for these things matters a lot. Law vs Chaos or Order vs Chaos works because Law and Chaos aren't inherently Good or Evil. But when you try to tell me "Being too good means becoming rigid" you're now clashing with the current generational AND personal definitions of good out there. These terms are too defined and too heavily influenced by virtually all of human experience to be presented in the way Dragonlance presents them; telling me that the Cataclysm had to happen because one Priest wanted to be come a god and because Evil is needed to balance out Good just isn't going to cut it presented as is.

Now, it is possible that someone with a strong vision could use these same terms and really ram home what Dragonlance is truly getting at in a creative and fantastical way that I could not imagine. In fact, it seems Joe is someone who could've done that. But having read some of the earlier books, all the earlier setting lore and stuff, I just don't see a future for the setting in today's current Fantasy ecosystem.

Zardnaar · Feb 8, 2024

jerryrice4949 said:
Seems like a pretty biased take. It also offers a classic good vs evil, high sorcery tale involving dragons. A tale of friendship and navigating complicated relationships with personal struggles. Things most people can relate too on top of the high fantasy elements. I agree there are some less desirable aspects but those could be left out of any movie or tv show with no one missing or noticing. Not having Gully Dwarves would not detract from the greater story.

It's a very generic and dated story though.

Wasn't even that good when I first read them in 1993 vs contemporary fantasy or even other D&D novels.

I'll give them a pass on the Mormonism aspects. They used their own background and it's easy to miss if you're not familiar with it.

humble minion · Feb 8, 2024

A live-action dragonlance done to modern sensibilities would certainly require change but would be far from impossible. If could have had enough landmines to make risk-averse Hasbro execs nervous though.

I wonder if they just saw a BG3 adaptation as a safer and more zeitgeisty option.

D&D Movie/TV Joe Manganiello: Dragonlance TV Show No Longer In Development

MockingBird

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bedir than

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