D&D General What Are Dragonlance's Weis & Hickman, and Actor Manganiello Cooking Up?

Authors and actor post "Something is coming..."
Actor and D&D superfan Joe Manganiello and Dragonlance co-author Tracy Hickman have both posted a cryptic image on their respective social medias showing themselves, along with Margaret Weis standing together in front of a large dragon statue at Wizards of the Coast's offices in Renton, Washington.

Hickman's image was accompanied by the words "Something is coming...", and in Manganiello's case "WE'RE BACK", to which Wizards of the Coast replied "Welcome back to the table!" A later photograph from Weis also included Laura Hickman and Dan Ayoub, who was named head of Dungeons & Dragons back in July of this year.

The posts have sparked speculation as to what they might mean, with guesses ranging from a revival of Manganiello's Dragonlance TV show project--which was no longer in development after he stated in February 2024 that "Dragonlance is not a property WotC are interested in developing further currently"--to a new Dragonlance-based D&D adventure.

Weis and Hickman co-wrote a new Dragonlance trilogy in recent years following a legal dust-up with Wizards of the Coast which was ultimately dismissed without prejudice, so it would seem that any bad blood from the dispute has been left in the past.

The question now remains--what are they all cooking up this time?

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I mean, I was open minded and felt ghe show was well made, but as a big fan of the boks (read the whole series multiple times)...the adaptation was really boneheaded on several fronts, and given the huge drop off in viewership (I never bothered past Season 1, can't bring myself to watch it, let alone convince my wife, she HATED that first Season something fierce) it doesn't seem it was aloud minority at play.

If theybhad managed the adaptation in such a way thwt they kept Brabdon Sanderson on team, at least, the show would have done better numbers, frankly.

And with DL, if they make changes I doubt it will matter if Weiss and Hickman are on board and selling it.
Eh . . .

I mean, certainly, some fans were upset with the changes made to the story. And that's fair.

But a majority of fans? There aren't numbers on that sort of thing, but . . .

I'm a fan of the books, and I loved the TV series, changes and all. Some of the changes I noticed, I didn't care for, some of the changes I thought were well done, but overall, really enjoyed the series.

We live in an era where those who are LOUD dominate the discussion, even if they do not represent a majority, or even a significant minority of people.

And from the data upthread, Wheel of Time was getting a better response than Rings of Power! And Rings of Power was getting similar cranky feedback from a portion of the fanbase. Did Amazon stick with Rings of Power because Bezos is such a huge fan? Or felt it had more long term potential? Who knows?
 

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What does it have to do with the WoT is a great question. The TV show cut most of the first book, and then had 70% or so original material.
ouch, if you have the guts to replace most of the original, one would hope you would replace it with something better. Given the result I doubt they achieved that....

Though slow and meandering are legitimate descriptions of the books, they just earn the meandering by the end.
In books that might work, I have read some books like that I enjoyed regardless, based purely on the language used. I am not sure it ever worked for a TV show.
 


So let’s say they do this as a tv series and write out a lot from the books. For me growing up part of what they took away made raistlin a better person. Will they substitute that character interaction with something else
 

I am hoping that this "news" means a live-action television adaptation of Chronicles, but . . . there are a lot of problematic elements that would likely be changed for TV . . . and there would be fan uproar as there was with Wheel of Time.
Agreed. If you look at some of the FB comments on those posts, you've already got the anti-woke* crowd complaining. If they changed those elements to be more modern sensibility orientated, you can bet there would be a loud uproar.

* Not being political, I mean "anti-woke" quite literally in that term usage, in that every single comment is the same thing: "woke sucks!" with little or no substance to the actual criticism but just buzzword usage.
 

Of course there is no accounting for taste, so me liking it and you not liking it mean very little, and I have no idea what a larger audience these days would think. I see no reason it would be destined to fail just based on it being DL however
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Dragonlance. And if I was 12 again, I imagine I would be ecstatic for a show. But DL does not really stand up to an even cursory critical examination.
 


ouch, if you have the guts to replace most of the original, one would hope you would replace it with something better. Given the result I doubt they achieved that....


In books that might work, I have read some books like that I enjoyed regardless, based purely on the language used. I am not sure it ever worked for a TV show.
One of the main strengths of the wheel of time is the prose and detailed descriptions, which to be fair the show captures a lot with detailed set design and art direction.
 

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Dragonlance. And if I was 12 again, I imagine I would be ecstatic for a show. But DL does not really stand up to an even cursory critical examination.

In what way? I may have to dig the books out its been awhile and I'm sure my memory has some pretty major gaps.
 


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