Paramount Developing Dungeons & Dragons TV Series

Dungeons & Dragons hasn’t been very lucky in getting Hollywood adaptions, with only a handful of productions carrying the official D&D brand in existence (if we threw in material INSPIRED by D&D, though, the list would be a long one). That is rapidly changing now that Wizards of the Coast owns D&D, Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, and Hasbro is hungry to get its recognizable IP churning out material.

That means a new D&D movie is set to premiere in March, but it’s not all there is. Paramount just announced it’s entered a deal with Wizards and Hasbro to produce a D&D TV series. Rawson Marshall, director of the already-forgotten Netflix movie Red Notice, has been hired to lead the team and write the pilot script. This would be only the second Dungeons and Dragons TV show to ever be (the first was that cartoon from 40 years ago).

Hasbro says they’ve been trying to get a new D&D TV series off the ground for quite a while now. Two years ago they announced a live-action show based on R.A. Salvatore’s novel The Crystal Shard; however that proposal apparently didn’t get any buyers interested.

The sudden expansion of D&D into film and television comes at an awkward time for the brand, as Wizards just controversially revised its OGL (Open Gaming License) to give it tighter control over third-party products that use D&D 5E rules. This was likely in response to someone publishing a game with racist content that used D&D branding, but the new OGL goes farther than just making those illegal…it grants a larger share of profits towards Wizards and enacts higher licensing fees.

More info on the D&D TV show as we get it. The series is being produced for Paramount+.