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.

 

[GreyLord]

This just starts the circle of bad ideas.

The first is....what is a D&D show? And to any non-D&D person it is only one thing: going on quests and fighting monsters. So with shock and horror they don't want to do that, and end up making a bland show about nothing for no reason. They won't even think about adding romance, drama, mystery or anything else.

But, oddly, try any other show. Take a cop show. a non cop show fan would say the show is just "criminal does crime cop catches them". And yet....somehow they ignore that and make a show with drama, romance, mystery and everything else. But it is still a cop show.

No, I think it's different than that, and I think that's part of why the D&D movie didn't do as well as some here think it should have.

1. It's a decent movie. It's a mediocre movie. It's not a GREAT movie as some here think. It's a GREAT movie to some here, but as movies go, it's not bad...but it's not great either. It's better than the last theatrical D&D movie released...but that's not that high of a bar to meet. It may be the greatest D&D movie ever made (with the Official D&D branding on it at least)...but once again...that's not that high of a bar to meet. It's a decent movie, but it's not what I would term as something I would have really investigated or gone out of my way to see if it didn't have the D&D branding on it and I wasn't an avid D&D fan already.

2. It's not what many people see D&D as. They think of D&D more like a Tolkien type of fantasy movie. In that light, The Fellowship of the Ring and the First Hobbit movie are FAR better D&D movies and WHAT PEOPLE may actually expect of a D&D movie...rather than what we got. Sure, it seems a LOT like D&D to those on these forums and many who play, but the average person who's exposure to fantasy (and thus what they think a fantasy game would try to replicate) are LotR and Harry Potter...that D&D movie is absolutely NOT it.

Tieflings, humorous bards, and Wizards who don't wizard...really doesn't seem as much of D&D fantasy to many (though it IS fantasy) as something more like a traditional epic fantasy to them.

3. And of course, there were the fans already that boycotted the movie due to the OGL situation (which was a stupid and idiotic move to try to make just a few months/weeks before a major movie release...Hasbro/WotC should thank their lucky stars that they were blessed that they weren't sued from hell and back for that move...that move alone probably cost several tens of millions of dollars...if not more).

So...a TV show that is going to be D&D to an audience...probably should fill the arena of what the GENERAL public thinks of when they think of D&D. There are a lot of Fantasy shows out already (on Amazon) like Rings of Power and Wheel of time and the Cartoon show based on the streaming group that is popular on these forums...so to compete that way...they need something that fulfills what the general public wants as the gaming groups for D&D probably already have what they want.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A LEGO: D&D animated show shouldn't sound so imposible. Years ago a LEGO: Transfomers seemed totally impossible, but now there is a LEGO Optimus Prime. Maybe in the next years Hasbro wanted "company". They tried a merger with Mattel but it didn't work.

Some tiles could be focused for the youngest ones, and others could be more mature audiences. Maybe there is in the future a crossover episode of Soth Park where the children after reading the novels and player Dark Sun as the "forbidden TTRPG" they dreamed they are in an "isekai" with that style of parody. Or it could be a videogame.

Shouldn't be the animation the best option?

 

[LordEntrails]

That is a good example. I wish I could tell all the show runners you don't need a million dollars of CGI spam every time a character teleports or tosses a fireball. The shows could save a ton of money by just having the character walk away, or do the super old "turn off camera, have character walk off set and turn camera back on...woosh, where did they go?".

Dr. Who has done this for decades. And Who's going to argue it hasn't been successful?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A LEGO: D&D animated show shouldn't sound so imposible

It’s not by any means impossible, it just that at this time, there is nothing in it for Lego. Hasbro is stuggling whist Lego is still making money hand over fist. That means Lego has all the power. The reason we got an Lego transformer toy is that Hasbro’s transformer toys aren’t selling. And Lego has its own show and accompanying toy line in which school kids enter a fantasy world and fight monsters.

A few years down the line the situation may have changed. But at the moment it won’t happen.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The first is....what is a D&D show

The only answer to that is “one with the D&D logo on it”. Without the logo, there are a great many D&D shows already out and about.

 

[OB1]

It doesn't come as a shock to me that the TV series didn't make it out of development, the vast majority of planned series don't. One of the big issues Marvel faces is that when you 100% commit to a show and a release date going forward before a pilot is shot is that what sounds like a good idea in the pitch doesn't pan out as you get into pre-production, but you have to move forward anyhow. GoT went through a massive re-write and re-cast after the pilot was shot, had it not, it would never have become the phenomenon it did. So perhaps this is the best thing possible for the D&D series.

As for DaDHat, the pandemic likely killed it's best chance to become a breakout hit. It also ran into a catch 22 where they spent a LOT of cash on the three big name stars (Pine, Rodriguez and Grant) in an era where big names don't provide a box office lift equal to the cost. That said, without those three, it's unlikely it would have done nearly as well streaming as it did. The best chance to get a sequel would be with a budget of $50-70M that drops those 3 and moves forward with the rest of the cast and try to capitalize off of the streaming success.

 

[Parmandur]

It doesn't come as a shock to me that the TV series didn't make it out of development, the vast majority of planned series don't. One of the big issues Marvel faces is that when you 100% commit to a show and a release date going forward before a pilot is shot is that what sounds like a good idea in the pitch doesn't pan out as you get into pre-production, but you have to move forward anyhow. GoT went through a massive re-write and re-cast after the pilot was shot, had it not, it would never have become the phenomenon it did. So perhaps this is the best thing possible for the D&D series.

As for DaDHat, the pandemic likely killed it's best chance to become a breakout hit. It also ran into a catch 22 where they spent a LOT of cash on the three big name stars (Pine, Rodriguez and Grant) in an era where big names don't provide a box office lift equal to the cost. That said, without those three, it's unlikely it would have done nearly as well streaming as it did. The best chance to get a sequel would be with a budget of $50-70M that drops those 3 and moves forward with the rest of the cast and try to capitalize off of the streaming success.

I doubt they will re-use any of the cast, but it did do well enough that they will likely mke another, lower budget go at some point a la G. I. Joe

 

[Paul Farquhar]

without those three, it's unlikely it would have done nearly as well streaming as it did

Nah, it’s Page who steals the show. The others could easily have been replaced with cheaper.

 

[payn]

It doesn't come as a shock to me that the TV series didn't make it out of development, the vast majority of planned series don't. One of the big issues Marvel faces is that when you 100% commit to a show and a release date going forward before a pilot is shot is that what sounds like a good idea in the pitch doesn't pan out as you get into pre-production, but you have to move forward anyhow. GoT went through a massive re-write and re-cast after the pilot was shot, had it not, it would never have become the phenomenon it did. So perhaps this is the best thing possible for the D&D series.

As for DaDHat, the pandemic likely killed it's best chance to become a breakout hit. It also ran into a catch 22 where they spent a LOT of cash on the three big name stars (Pine, Rodriguez and Grant) in an era where big names don't provide a box office lift equal to the cost. That said, without those three, it's unlikely it would have done nearly as well streaming as it did. The best chance to get a sequel would be with a budget of $50-70M that drops those 3 and moves forward with the rest of the cast and try to capitalize off of the streaming success.

Yikes history repeating. A sequel with no names and cheaper budget that nobody will watch followed by any even cheaper sequel for sure nobody will watch.

 

[OB1]

Nah, it’s Page who steals the show. The others could easily have been replaced with cheaper.

Agree that Page steals the show and that's why I would make sure to include her in the sequel. An easy storyline would have Pine and Rodriguez captured by the Thayens, and the story follows her, Simon and Bug as they travel across Faerun to rescue them. Have it end with them getting to Thay, and if that one does well, bring back Pine and Rodriguez for the 3rd film.