D&D Movie/TV Update on D&D TV Show -- Underdark, Small, 6-10 Episodes

Writer Derek Kolstad (John Wick) has shared an insight into the upcoming D&D TV show with Collider, which he says will be 6-10 serialized episodes with an Underdark element.

His approach is a "tinier sliver" of the world, compared to epic stories like Lord of the Rings. He compares it to Star Wars and Jaws. He mentioned that he's like to go "deeper and deeper into the Underdark".

"In the first Star Wars, you heard about Jabba the Hutt and you don't see him until the third one because you earn at that point, and whatever the budget was for the third one compared to the first one, who cares, right? And I think in Dungeons and Dragons, who has this massive, dedicated community of acolytes, I don't want to suddenly throw everything on screen and say, 'Here's the buffet.' You'd much rather keep the story intimate. When you think of our favorite movies, I'd rather do the First Blood version. It's a guy in the woods being hunted. And it's very small, but you allude to the other things through conversation."

As yet the show is untitled. Kolstad talked a bit about legal meetings and available characters for use. It sounds like he wants to set it towards the end of any 'metaplot' that D&D might have -- "... don't want to go in the middle of the mythos. I want to come near the end where everything is canonical, it's biblical, it's happened. Or, it's about to happen. That way you can revisit certain sequences and storylines that everyone loved in the past through flashback, but where we go is new"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Lol okay. Your anecdotes totally negate the book sales.

Lets be generous, and say 10,000 copies sold world wide - that's enough to make the best seller list. Compare that to a successful TV show: it's estimated that 6.4 million people watched WandaVision in the US alone. That's about 1.5%. Novels don't matter.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Lets be generous, and say 10,000 copies sold world wide - that's enough to make the best seller list. Compare that to a successful TV show: it's estimated that 6.4 million people watched WandaVision in the US alone. That's about 1.5%. Novels don't matter.

You’ve no clue what you’re even arguing if you think that’s relevant to the discussion. No one was discussing anything relevant to the sales of books vs views of tv shows.

Adaptations of popular books series do better than original stories. Nothing you just said is remotely relevant to that.

And no, 10k is not “generous”, it’s a ridiculously low number. The minimum print run ordered by the publisher in the first run (which sold out requiring them to print more to meet demand) was 50k. It’s still on shelves (and moves off those shelves regularly) today, though I don’t have time to find out how many printings it’s had in the intervening time.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Adaptations of popular books series do better than original stories. Nothing you just said is remotely relevant to that.

Yes, but those books are chosen to be adapted because of their quality, not because of their fan-base. With only a couple of exceptions,, like LotR, Twilight and Harry Potter, the fan base isn't big enough to make a difference. Having a good story is.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Adaptations of popular books series do better than original stories. Nothing you just said is remotely relevant to that.

Is there any actual proof to this? These are the top performing films of all time, adjusted for inflation.

Seems like a mix of adaptations and completely original screenplays to me.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Aside from Dragonlance being... not very good anyways... there are a number of issues with the base work to overcome in production.

It wouldn't be all that difficult to fix, but the only people who care about the IP are the people who will stir up a sh*tstorm over the necessary changes.

 

[hopeless]

Does that include the library copies because that's how I read that series!
Admittedly I stopped once they got past the scenarios, but I did get hold of some Dragonlance scenarios from the library just not the first series.

 

[Zardnaar]

I liked Dragonlance when I was 15.

I had gone off them aged 19.

That was in the 90's and even then they were in bad taste.

I wouldn't bother fixing them just product of their time and if you don't like them don't buy the reprints.

I wouldn't adapt it to the big screen. Would also avoid Drow.

If I had to pick a character to adapt Arilyn Moonblade perhaps or another Elaine Cunningham work.

It fits the current zeitgeist better and are better quality as well IMHO.

 

[hopeless]

Somehow if they're planning an Underdark series that either means Mind Flayers or Drow involved, probably both.
Fell's Five might have been a better choice.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It wouldn't be all that difficult to fix, but the only people who care about the IP are the people who will stir up a sh*tstorm over the necessary changes.

LOL no. Complete BS.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Somehow if they're planning an Underdark series that either means Mind Flayers or Drow involved, probably both.

Aboleth, koa-toa and a bunch of other stuff is doable, too.

There's a lot of stuff in the Underdark. Even if they just used it as a really big dungeon and made it a scary place to be, like Descent with magic, it would be sufficiently weird and different than existing fantasy series.