The Most Popular Role-Playing Game Is Becoming A Live-Action Series
A new Dungeons & Dragons live-action series is being produced for Paramount+.
On the heels of the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves live-action movie, the most popular tabletop game is now also becoming a live-action series for Paramount+. Rawson Marshall Thurber, who wrote Red Notice, has written the pilot script and will be directing the first episodes of the series. This new series will contain eight episodes and has been given a straight-to-series order by the streaming company.
Interestingly, Paramount Pictures and eOne are once again partnering on this new Dungeons & Dragons series, after both agreed to co-produce and co-finance the upcoming movie, which is set to release in March. This could mean there might be some sort of shared universe between the upcoming movie and series, though that has not yet been confirmed. Paramount+ had apparently secured the rights to the new series after a competitive situation arose between many companies bidding for the new tabletop adaptation.
Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote and directed Red Notice, as previously mentioned, which rose to become the most-watched movie in Netflix history. The film starred Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds in an espionage action comedy that made waves on the streaming app. Thurber is working on two sequels for the hit Netflix releases, a Voltron adaptation, and this new Dungeons & Dragons series.
Paramount+ has now added its second video game adaptation, as it secured the rights and released the first season of the hit series, Halo. Now, Dungeons & Dragons is being added to the streaming company’s slate. With the huge popularity that the tabletop game is garnering lately, it makes sense that Paramount saw the huge gains to be made with the movie and series adaptations.
Stranger Things likely brought a ton more attention to Dungeons & Dragons, as the kids in the series play their own campaign, where the monsters are directly pulled from. Since then, there has likely been far more attention turned towards the tabletop role-playing game, which is going to see a movie adaptation come out first. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves stars Hugh Grant, Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, and many more.
With the expansive lore, factions, and characters that exist in the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game, there is going to be a ton of source material that Thurber and Paramount+ can pull from to create this new series. We are not sure how the format is going to work in the movie or series, but we would hope there is going to be some rolling mechanic incorporated. If characters don’t roll a “Natural 1,” then both properties are going to have some missed opportunities.
Rolling a “Natural 1” in Dungeons & Dragons is the worst possible thing to happen to players, and causes catastrophic and hilarious things to happen, which we hope is mirrored in this new series. We likely won’t see this new series released on Paramount+ until later this year, or possibly early 2024. We are likely to start hearing about casting choices in the coming weeks, which we hope involves Joe Manganiello, who is one of the biggest celebrity advocates for D&D.
