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]

It was 40 million a season.

'Shadow and Bone' Season 2: Netflix Release Date & Everything We Know So Far

Netflix has officially unveiled when the new season will be on Netflix.

www.whats-on-netflix.com

Which is 50 million in todays money. By comparison, Witcher S1 was in 70-80 million range. In total, they spent 330 million on 2 seasons plus Blood origin. That's nice chunk of change.

 

[bedir than]

I'm definitely not of the "f*ck WotC/Hasbro" camp but I can't help but feel that all their inept bumbling of fan goodwill over the last couple years killed a very real and intangible resource of fan enthusiasm which could have helped push these sorts of projects over the finishline.

Paramount is going through issues much more significant than Hasbro's.

Their primary owner wants to sell at a massively devalued number in order to gain assurances that the legacy remains. She owns ~70% of the shares, so could force it through.

BUT the Sony bid is so much more money that she'll need to consider it. They want to sell off bits and pieces.

Direct-to-consumer is currently at 1.9 billion(P+, Pluto, various others) up 28% from same time last year. It hit profitability last Q, the first time it had done so, making 100 mill.

The idea that "no one knows how to make money on streaming" doesn't match the facts.

 

[jerryrice4949]

I'm definitely not of the "f*ck WotC/Hasbro" camp but I can't help but feel that all their inept bumbling of fan goodwill over the last couple years killed a very real and intangible resource of fan enthusiasm which could have helped push these sorts of projects over the finishline.

The OGL debacle timing was terrible but I think it had little effect on the box office results of the movie. Casual fans make or break the box office. For whatever reason this was a movie many casual viewers decided to stream at home.

 

[Abstruse]

People talking about box office these days don't seem to acknowledge how radically the entertainment industry has changed on the consumer end.

In America at least, movie tickets cost anywhere from $8 to $16 each, then a bucket of popcorn and soda is another $20, then there's the costs of gas driving to the theater, possible parking costs, time investment of an extra hour or more than the movie's runtime to be sure you're there on time plus the trailers/ads plus total commute time.

Then there's the experience itself. Terrible sound mixing because they crank the speakers to the max because some little old lady forgot to turn on her hearing aid and complained once and they never fixed it, projectors that haven't been serviced in a decade, nobody actually in the projection room to make sure the film's projecting correctly and not outside the screen. And you've got to share the experience with people talking through the entire movie asking one another what happened because they had their screen on full brightness tweeting/texting/etc. the entire time (once had someone taking selfies every 15 minutes with "Reaction Shots" after every plot point in the film while using the camera flash).

Or you can wait a month or three and watch it at home on your $200 50" 4K TV and $100 sound bar or surround sound system where you can adjust the volume to your tastes, start/stop when you want, pause it if you need to, make whatever snacks you like, not having anyone ruin the experience (or at least no more than anything else you watch if your family/roommates are jerks). And if you go to the movies once a month, the costs catch up within a year.

Not to mention there's still a pandemic going on and a lot of people who can't go out to be locked in a small room with strangers for two hours for health reasons...

But the studios and trade magazines keep expecting theatrical releases to work exactly like they did in the 2010s.

 

[jerryrice4949]

People talking about box office these days don't seem to acknowledge how radically the entertainment industry has changed on the consumer end.

In America at least, movie tickets cost anywhere from $8 to $16 each, then a bucket of popcorn and soda is another $20, then there's the costs of gas driving to the theater, possible parking costs, time investment of an extra hour or more than the movie's runtime to be sure you're there on time plus the trailers/ads plus total commute time.

Then there's the experience itself. Terrible sound mixing because they crank the speakers to the max because some little old lady forgot to turn on her hearing aid and complained once and they never fixed it, projectors that haven't been serviced in a decade, nobody actually in the projection room to make sure the film's projecting correctly and not outside the screen. And you've got to share the experience with people talking through the entire movie asking one another what happened because they had their screen on full brightness tweeting/texting/etc. the entire time (once had someone taking selfies every 15 minutes with "Reaction Shots" after every plot point in the film while using the camera flash).

Or you can wait a month or three and watch it at home on your $200 50" 4K TV and $100 sound bar or surround sound system where you can adjust the volume to your tastes, start/stop when you want, pause it if you need to, make whatever snacks you like, not having anyone ruin the experience (or at least no more than anything else you watch if your family/roommates are jerks). And if you go to the movies once a month, the costs catch up within a year.

Not to mention there's still a pandemic going on and a lot of people who can't go out to be locked in a small room with strangers for two hours for health reasons...

But the studios and trade magazines keep expecting theatrical releases to work exactly like they did in the 2010s.

100% correct. Movie viewing has changed as the quality and experience of how viewing has improved dramatically. The pandemic accelerated something that had already started. Live sports to an extent have experienced something similar.

 

[bedir than]

For example, the D&D movie is this year's 8th most watched movie globally on Paramount+.

The staying power its viewership has is something that every single studio wants.

 

[Rabulias]

Sony? Uh oh.

Sony exec: "So these Drow elves worship the queen of spiders, eh?"
Hasbro/WotC: "Yes, they do."
Sony exec: "Sounds great for a Madame Web crossover!"

Make it animated.

This would be better. Sony's Spider-Verse movies are great, both in animation and story.

 

[payn]

Sony exec: "So these Drow elves worship the queen of spiders, eh?"
Hasbro/WotC: "Yes, they do."
Sony exec: "Sounds great for a Madame Web crossover!"

This would be better. Sony's Spider-Verse movies are great, both in animation and story.

 

[Rabulias]

"He was in Menzoberranzan with my mom when she was worshipping spiders right before she died."

 

[bloodtide]

It does seem like Fantasy is fading a bit.

For the last couple of years all the business folk have been focused with an idea "Make the Next Game of Thrones". Thought they only want to make a "random fantasy show that people will obsessively watch and that will make tons of money."

And how many Fantasy shows have come and gone under this idea.....and none have been the "Next Game of Thrones". It seems you can't just toss out a random fantasy show and "make it" the "next Game of Thrones".

So...do they really want to toss out yet another fantasy show...and yet again have the show "not be the next Game of Thrones"?