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

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?

 

[gban007]

It’s not “great” but it’s entertaining enough, and I’m enjoying it more than I enjoyed GoT and WoT.

Of course the “huge LotR fans” are the people who review bombed it for not being sufficiently pure.

I think the biggest danger for shows is apathy. There is often unfortunately review bombing by those who have an agenda, as while can expect some negative reviews from people who may not like a show, I also feel rightly or wrongly that if you bounce off a show after 1 episode, it is clear it isnt a show that is for you, but I dont know that someone has watched enough to give a fair review of the show as such?
For me, with everything else on to watch / do, RoP just doesn't interest me enough to want to make effort to watch. WoT I watched more, but just became too disconnected from the books for me to enjoy- I didnt think it was a bad show, just too much of a disconnect for me to enjoy as such?
But with RoP if enough people just dont care enough to make time to wqtch it, regardless of how well reviewed it is, i think that is a bigger danger than a vocal group who hate the show.
Marvels movie was similar for me - I got to wqtch it free on a Disney Cruise and really enjoyed it, but without ability to watch it for free, it just didnt interest me enough to want to spend money to go to a cinema to see as such. Again, some people seemed to be against the movie from the start for other reasons, but I dont think that made it fail at box office, I just think enough people weren't interested enough one way or the other.

 

[môrgondír]

I'm in the cohort that strongly prefers to read the books over watch shows adapted from them - I was never a part of its intended audience.

I'm glad that it may introduce more readers to Tolkien's writing, but I have no intention of watching it, nor review bombing it - its a potentially interesting point of discussion academically, but even that is limited for me since I'm only proceeding from the source material, and not the secondary product based on such.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And I think a Drsgonlance show could pull that off, too, getting at what ianfun in the novels without being overly reverant to every detail that maybe hasn't aged well in 40 years

I think that they could stick fairly close to the main story - it’s pretty simple, which is better for TV.

But we know that all the major controversy will be over the skin colour of the cast, no matter who they cast.

 

[mamba]

The critical consensus on Rotten Tomato and Metacritic for both seasons is positive, and per Amazon they have made nearly $400 million from the first two seasons and juiced retail numbers for Tolkien stuff.

that $400M is pretty suspect, I would not put much faith in it. Also, that is still below production cost apparently, of the first season only…

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For Wheel of Time, a long-form animated show like Frieren: Beyond Journey's end would be a much better model than GoT.

Probably the major advantage Rings of Power has is being essentily original, a fan fiction riff on some established lore sure, but really being it's own original creation.

And I think a Drsgonlance show could pull that off, too, getting at what ianfun in the novels without being overly reverant to every detail that maybe hasn't aged well in 40 years.

These shows are really better suited to long form animation. There was a survey recently in which younger folk indicated that they would rather watch animation in any case.

 

[Marc Radle]

I think the original Dragonlance trilogy would make a fantastic TV / streaming series!

 

[Scribe]

I think that they could stick fairly close to the main story - it’s pretty simple, which is better for TV.

But we know that all the major controversy will be over the skin colour of the cast, no matter who they cast.

I mean...cast it like the books and existing art describe the characters which have existed for decades?

Seems a pretty easy "issue" to thereby avoid.

 

[Parmandur]

that $400M is pretty suspect, I would not put much faith in it. Also, that is still below production cost apparently, of the first season only…

You can suspect it, yet Amazon keeps makomg the show.

 

[Zaukrie]

ooops, wrong thread.

 

[Parmandur]

I think that they could stick fairly close to the main story - it’s pretty simple, which is better for TV.

But we know that all the major controversy will be over the skin colour of the cast, no matter who they cast.

It's true, but not an insurmountable barrier...particularly if they can get the original authors on side.

These shows are really better suited to long form animation. There was a survey recently in which younger folk indicated that they would rather watch animation in any case.

For sure, and easier to achieve logistically: Frieren, which is an absolutely gorgeous epic fantasy banger, has a budget tof somewhere around $80-100 thousand dollars per episode, rather than millions or tens of millions.