Live Action D&D show announced
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Paramount+ has given an eight-episode, straight-to-series order to an adaptation of Hasbro’s wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game franchise. Red Notice filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote the pilot script and is set to direct the first episode of the series which will be a co-production between eOne and Paramount Pictures.
eOne, the lead studio, took the project out in November, garnering interest from multiple buyers, with Paramount+ ultimately landing the show in a competitive situation. eOne and Paramount Pictures are partnering on the Dungeons & Dragons series after also co-producing and co-financing the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie directed by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley, which premieres March 31.
At Paramount+, the Dungeons & Dragons series will join Halo, the video game adaptation, which is one of the streamer’s most popular originals. Over the last couple of years, there has been a resurgence in bringing gaming titles to television, and this is the latest example.
Adapting Dungeons & Dragons for television has been a major focus for eOne under President of Global Television Michael Lombardo following the company’s 2019 acquisition by Hasbro. The live-action series has been tipped to be the studio’s largest-scope TV project ever, potentially launching a “Dungeons & Dragons” universe spanning multiple scripted and unscripted shows.
Overseeing the series for eOne is Gabriel Marano, the company’s EVP Scripted Television.
Hasbro, which is handling all series-based consumer products, is currently looking to sell eOne’s film and TV businesses, including the Lombardo-run TV operation, which developed and sold the Dungeons & Dragons TV series.
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 hailing 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 videogames and livestream entertainment on Twitch and YouTube.
Thurber is the writer, producer and director of Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, which became Netflix’s most watched film of all time. He is currently penning two sequels for Netflix and recently sold a pitch for a feature adaptation of the classic animated series Voltron to Amazon, which he is co-writing with Ellen Shanman and will direct and produce alongside Todd Lieberman. Thurber is repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson Teller.
