Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy is said to be making a Dungeons & Dragons live action series for Netflix.
Even before the success of Stranger Things put Dungeons & Dragons back into mainstream popular culture, there were several attempts to adapt the tabletop roleplaying game and turn it into a screen version for a wider audience. There was the classic 1980s cartoon of course, not to mention a less celebrated turn of the century film starring Jeremy Irons.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, backed by Paramount in 2023, went on to earn $205m at the global box office – not quite the sum that the studio would have been hoping for given that is reportedly cost around $150m to make, before the movie’s substantial marketing costs are even considered. It was a fun enough film buoyed by Chris Pine’s cheeky performance, but the numbers clearly didn’t add up for Paramount when it came to commissioning a sequel.
Undeterred, Paramount pushed ahead with a series order for a small screen take on Dungeons & Dragons, led by Red Notice's Rawson Marshall Thurber. That however, would never materialise.
Podcast | Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) and The Phantom Of The Opera (2004)
Still, there clearly continues to be a feeling that the fantasy roleplaying game is something of an untapped wellspring if the right version of the project could be shaped. According to Deadline, Netflix has decided to have a crack at it next, mounting a live action Dungeons & Dragons series based on the Forgotten Realms series of source books, novels and storylines.
Director and producer Shawn Levy and writer-showrunner Drew Crevello, the mind behind Apple TV’s WeCrashed, are at the helm of this latest incarnation, which is coming to Netflix courtesy of Hasbro. Levy certainly knows how to engineer crowd-pleasing entertainment: Stranger Things has been huge for Netflix while Deadpool & Wolverine was a hit at the box office. The filmmaker’s currently developing an untitled Star Wars film which may or may not star Ryan Gosling.
We’ll keep an eye on where this one goes, but it looks like we certainly haven’t seen the last of Dungeons & Dragons yet. If you are interested in exploring why fantasy has struggled on screens both large and small over the past few years, then we have the ideal article for you.
