Dungeons & Dragons (television series)

A live-action unnamed Dungeons & Dragons series is currently in development and based on the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, with an eight-episode series to appear on the Paramount+ streaming servie.

General Information
Concurrent with development of the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, Hasbro's Entertainment One (eOne) studio revealed plans for a live-action Dungeons & Dragons series at a quarterly earnings call, reported October 30, 2020. Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said "[The team is] also working on a couple of different approaches, because there is so much mythology in canon to [adapt] Dungeons & Dragons for live-action television. And there's been very strong interest. We've talked about how many global streamers and terrestrial broadcasters have been very interested in Dungeons & Dragons." This was clarified at its investor day on February 25, 2021. Then, Steve Bertram, President of Film & Television at eOne, said "we've engaged several writers to develop premium television projects designed as a foundation for a new robust D&D brand universe. We expect to bring our first premium series to the marketplace soon after the new film reaches consumers. This new content pipeline will fuel all aspects of the D&D brand blueprint, creating significant opportunity across consumer products, toys and games. All of this really just scratches the surface. We have so many more projects in development. And we anticipate many exciting announcements in the months to come." These writers presumably included Derek Kolstad, Andrew Cosby, and Rawson Thurber, whose individual involvements are covered below. In addition, multiple television series are mentioned—some may be more streamed actual-play series like D&D Presents Invitation to Party and the animated short Sleep Sound.

A Wizards of the Coast press release about Drizzt Do'Urden on May 21, 2021, mentioned the series and movie; in clarifying the movie was not focused on Drizzt, it left open the possibility that the series might be. Several sites contacted Wizards, which confirmed this nebulous state,  but it should be stressed it is just as likely not to be—through misreporting and speculation in the press, the statement evolved from a statement of Drizzt not appearing to a possibility to a likely case. Moreover, it was made at a time when at least three pitches were under consideration and none were yet confirmed.

Michael Lombardo, President of Global Television for Hasbro's Entertainment One, in an interview with Deadline published on November 22, 2021, discussed the various Hasbro properties then being developed for television, including Dungeons & Dragons. He said "Our big focus right now is Dungeons & Dragons. When I initially sat with Darren [Throop] and Steve [Bertram], knowing that Dungeons is part of the Hasbro portfolio was incredibly exciting to me. It's a world and part of that is, its challenges are 'wow, where do you start?' We don't want it to just be one show so we are building out, developing out a multi-pronged approach for television, a number of scripted shows and unscripted, and we hope to be taking this out to the marketplace early next year." Asked if he was a fan, Lombardo replied "I was not a Dungeons & Dragons kid, and maybe I'm too old for it, but the people that played it, they continue to play it, it's so meaningful. They're so passionate about it, and we have had numerous discussions and a lot of interesting filmmakers, it's just finding the right team that has legs, that feels fresh in this moment. We have a big movie that's in post right now that will come out first so, we're trying to also navigate the brand more holistically so that the movie feels not apart from but connected somehow to a bigger universe."

Kolstad Pitch
On January 15, 2021, Variety reported that screenwriter Derek Kolstad (John Wick, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) had been asked by eOne to write a pitch for a live-action Dungeons & Dragons series. Kolstad delivered a 'series bible' to eOne before March 24. It was unnamed, with the working title of simply "D&D."

The same day he delivered the series bible Kolstad was interviewed by Collider, published on March 24. It mentioned his deep reverence for fantasy, with favorites being Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and the D&D setting Dragonlance. Kolstad described his approach in detail, saying "I want to do a tinier sliver of that world. And it's been a joy." He explained in detail "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. You have your USS Indianapolis [in Jaws], you see something in the background. You hear a name that 3% of the audience is like, 'Ho ho, I think we're going to see him soon.' I think the thing is just to take a deep breath, to go into it slowly, and to just respect the world, and as you adapt, certain things need to change. But you better not touch the heart and soul of why people love this thing." He added "I stick with macro at this stage in the game, because this thing is such important IP, you have to be malleable. And so I'll stick to my guns when it comes to the characters and certain aspects of the world, but as to the story, by the time you start shooting, you throw away the bible going, 'Hey, it got us here, but now look where we are.' And you have to rebuild." In comparison to the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Kolstad was unconcerned about competition, saying "you want everything to succeed because that's only good for the franchise as a whole... if it's this massive spectacle at a quarter billion dollars that does well, great, because I want my show to exist in a little, little subset shadow of it." and "In TV, you get to pause. And let's be honest, our favorite episodes of our favorite series tend to be the one where they ran out of money, and it's two guys in a room. It's the bottle episode, and they talk, and they go deep, and they say, 'I am the man who knocks,' or whatever the classic line is that I can't remember right now from Breaking Bad. Those are your favorite moments. Action is action, and we'll get to that, and it will be cool, but when a guy says or does a certain thing, that's where TV has its strong point." Furthermore, Kolstad said the series will be "a serialized show, much like the old radio" with around six to ten episodes in the first season, without any limits on length so it can have "breathing room". Moreover, Kolstad felt that "the first episode of any series is the second most important because it's the second episode that gets its talons in you. Everyone will watch the pilot, but are you going to stick with it?" and said the first and second were the most planned out.

Regarding the story elements, Kolstad said in the Collider interview that he didn'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. The unique yet familiar of it all is why we return to the games we love." He also certain canon characters are off limits, given shifting copyrights with the Dungeons & Dragons movie. He did mentioned he wanted to "go deeper and deeper into the Underdark."

However, Polygon reported the Kolstad series was still only a pitch as of January 2022, and that a Wizards representative couldn't confirm or deny if it was in development. It is unknown if and how it is related to the Thurber project, below. Coincidentally, on December 6, 2021, Kolstad was reported to now be writer and executive producer of another live-action fantasy series, based on short-lived comic Battle Chasers, suggesting he may have moved on from the D&D series.

Cosby Pitch
Producer and screenwriter Andrew Cosby (Eureka, Hellboy (2019)) mentioned on Twitter on May 25 "I am literally working on something almost exactly that for the live-action Dungeons and Dragons series as we speak." where "that" is a viral post about a fantasy Las Vegas for a D&D campaign. At San Diego Comic-Con, July 23–25, 2021, Cosby said "I've designed the series to basically be a campaign. I got to sit down as an adult professional and design a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I'm being paid to do that will ultimately have hundreds of people working on it." and "There's an amazing team at eOne that Hasbro has put in charge of the film and the television show. The people I've been working with get Dungeons & Dragons at a level that is difficult to believe. It feels like being at a D&D table. It's a bunch of creative people sitting in a room and saying, 'What if we did this? What if we did that?'"

Thurber Project
Ultimately, Rawson Thurber (Dodgeball, Red Notice) was hired as executive producer of the series, as reported January 31, 2022. Episodes are to be 1 hour long, with the pilot written and directed by Thurber himself. A D&D player himself, Thurber commented on Twitter, "So deeply thrilled about this. Grew up playing the pnp version (lvl 13 lawful good paladin, holla!), enjoyed the heck outta @DDOUnlimited — learned to tell stories through (always) being the DM. Boyhood dreams do come true, ya'll. Can't wait to get cracking." In replies, he hinted at a Faerûn setting.

After a full year of silence, on January 10, 2023, Hasbro's eOne and Paramount Pictures announced their co-production of the series, after also co-producing the Honor Among Thieves movie. The series will be eight episodes long and will appear on the Paramount+ streaming service. Drew Crevello (developer of Deadpool and X-Men: First Class) was later hired as showrunner.