Paramount+ scraps its live-action Dungeons & Dragons show
By Dan Selcke
Last year, Paramount+ ordered eight episodes of a show based on Dungeons & Dragons, the hugely popular tabletop role-playing game where people play as wizards and warriors and thieves and go on adventures under the watchful eye of a dungeon master. Paramount ordered the show straight to series, which is usually a good indicator that it's actually going to happen. But no. Deadline reports that the show won't be moving forward.
The reversal may have something to do with some corporate shenanigans behind the scenes. The show was originally a co-production between Paramount Pictures, Hasbro (which owns the rights to D&D) and the Hasbro-owned company Entertainment One. But Hasbro sold Entertaiment One to Lionsgate in December of 2023, which may have shifted things around.
In any case, the D&D show isn't dead; it's just not going forward at Paramount+. Hasbro is now managing it in-house through Hasbro Entertainment, and will shop the idea around to other buyers after drafting a new creative team.
A Dungeons & Dragon show is still coming, just not immediately
The time does seem right for a live-action Dungeons & Dragons show. The tabletop role-playing game got a huge shot in the arm thanks to the COVID pandemic; people played a lot of it while they were trapped inside. The 2023 movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves found an audience, D&D live-streamers like Critical Role are absolutely huge (as is the Critical Role animated show Vox Machina), and Hasbro has mounted a D&D stage show called The Twenty-Sided Tavern. The time is now, and Hasbro wants to advantage of that.
I think we'll see a live-action Dungeons & Dragons show eventually; it's just a matter of the producers finding the right partners. For now, all that other D&D stuff I just mentioned should help salve the wound.
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