EXCLUSIVE: Paramount+ has opted not to proceed with its live-action series based on Hasbro’s wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game franchise.
The move comes almost an year and a half after the Paramount streamer in January 2023 gave the project an eight-episode, straight-to-series order. At the time, it was a co-production between Hasbro-owned eOne, which had developed the series, and Paramount Pictures.
Now shepherded by Hasbro’s in-house division Hasbro Entertainment following eOne’s December 2023 sale to Lionsgate, the project will undergo a creative update before being taken out to other potential buyers, both production partners and platforms, sources said.
The changes will include a new creative team. The version, which sold to Paramount+, was from creator Rawson Marshall Thurber, who wrote the pilot script and was set to direct the first episode. He was subsequently joined by Drew Crevello, who came on board in April 2023 as executive producer and showrunner.
Hasbro, which retains all rights to the underlying material, remains committed to getting a live-action Dungeons & Dragons series off the ground as part of a broader universe, which includes the 2023 feature Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves as well as a Broadway Dungeons & Dragons show, The Twenty-Sided Tavern, now playing.
Featuring humans, elves, orcs and other fantastical creatures engaging in wars, treasure hunts and campaigns, the D&D game, one of Hasbro’s key franchise brands from Wizards of the Coast, is overseen by a host, known as the Dungeon Master, and employs a signature multisided dice. More than 50 million fans have played D&D since it was first launched 49 years ago, including video games and livestream entertainment on Twitch and YouTube.
Like Hasbro’s entertainment operations, Paramount also has been in transition, with multiple potential buyers circling the company built around the 102-year-old movie studio of the same name.
