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

Actor Joe Manganiello has confirmed that the anticipated Dragonlance TV show that he had been working on is no longer being developed. In an interview with ComicBook.com. According to Manganiello, following poor sales of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and the Warriors of Krynn board game last year, "Dragonlance is not a property [WotC] are interested in developing further currently". This decision was also prompted by Hasbro's sale of its media studio, eOne.

In March last year, Manganiello confirmed during an official D&D video update that he was working on a TV show for WotC, and a D&D live action series was greenly by Paramount in January. It's not clear if these are the same property.

Manganiello also talked about his approach to the property, and the new designs he had for the world, the dragons, and even the casting. "I want to make [the 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."

He has been working on a script for years, and was told by TV executives that his pilot was one of the best fantasy scripts they had ever read. He even offered to buy Dragonlance from WotC.

You can watch the whole interview at the link above.

 

[humble minion]

GoT subverts a lot of fantasy tropes executed well.

Dragonlance is a dime a dozen executed at best average being generous .

GoT was subversive for its time, but it's certainly not any more. Through its success, it defined a new mainstream. It created and popularised a whole lot of new tropes which are bordering on overdone cliche now.

 

[Alzrius]

Pretty sure you're going to get that, given how successful the series has been. Except Vecna will continue to be called "The Whispered One." I'll be interested to see whether or not Arkhan appears; Manganiello is friends with the CR guys, but that character showing up was a little bit inside baseball and not necessary for the core plot. Epic, though.

You know, I didn't put two and two together at the time, but Arkhan being name-dropped in Weis and Hickman's recent Dragons of Deceit novel (along with, if I recall correctly, Vecna) makes a lot more sense in light of his passion for Dragonlance.

 

[Zardnaar]

GoT was subversive for its time, but it's certainly not any more. Through its success, it defined a new mainstream. It created and popularised a whole lot of new tropes which are bordering on overdone cliche now.

The books still decent if you reread it now.

Dragonlance was long in the tooth when I read it. That was 1993.

Dragons of Summer Flame more or less ended DL as in all the characters you cared about were dead and the changes after that meh.

At least it was written better

 

[mamba]

Dragons of Summer Flame more or less ended DL as in all the characters you cared about were dead and the changes after that meh.

agreed, that ended it for me too, that switch was TSR's idea though

 

[Zardnaar]

agreed, that ended it for me too, that switch was TSR's idea though

True it's kind of a book end on the original trilogy.

 

[Distracted DM]

I couldn't find the link to the actual video/audio interview, just the article summarizing it. Can anyone help me out?

 

[michaeljpastor]

I think we and everyone else here is also ignoring a very big part of the tv-series not going forwards: they still didn't have a distributor for it. None of the streaming services were interested for now and after a certain time of that can't just continue to throw development money at it.

I did mention it - "the Golden Age of Streaming is over" - I only mentioned HBO however because it was the one that Joe mentioned in the video.

 

[Shardstone]

Seen 0 of any of that.

You need to see Primal.

 

[nyvinter]

I did mention it - "the Golden Age of Streaming is over" - I only mentioned HBO however because it was the one that Joe mentioned in the video.

Sorry I missed that.

But it's not even "Golden Age of Streaming". Guillermo Del Toro has had Frankenstein in on and off development since 2008 — at least. And he's Guillermo Del Toro!

And for this, add that Paramount already has another D&D series in development and the other big streamers have their own fantasy shows, some that failed. Things not getting picked up is business as usual even for seasoned showrunners so Manganiello's interview does not put him in the best of light. (In fact, it reminds me of the whiny bridge-burning Joss Whedon did when Dollhouse got cancelled and he huffed off with a "I'll never work in tv again if you're going to be this ungratefull!")

 

[Shardstone]

D&D, as the father of TTRPGs as we know them, doesn't really have that distinct of an identity. The dragons change in different settings, for example. Sphinxes aren't always the same thing. What's D&D about D&D is using magic like superpowers, which despite critical pushback has been true since the very original version of this game, and characters of varying moral qualities doing things that end up being heroic, even if that wasn't the intent at all.

This also applies to most Fantasy fiction, since D&D is heavily impactful on Fantasy fiction as we know it in many different obvious and implicit ways.