After failing a saving throw at Paramount+, Hasbro is trying to make a live-action Dungeons & Dragons TV series work again–and one of the increasingly busiest men in Hollywood is helping them to do so.
Deadline reports that Shawn Levy–still hot off the blockbuster success of Deadpool & Wolverine last year, and recent rumors that his long-in-limbo Star Wars movie may lightspeed-jump its way to the top of Lucasfilm’s priorities if it snags Ryan Gosling to star–will executive produce The Forgotten Realms for Hasbro at Netflix. WeCrashed‘s Drew Crevello will serve as co-executive producer with Levy as well as writer and showrunner on the series, and has already written a pilot for the series. As the name suggests, the show will be set in the world of D&D‘s most famous setting, the fantasy world home to Faerûn and iconic locations like the Sword Coast and the Underdark, and cities like Neverwinter, Baldur’s Gate, Candlekeep, Icewind Dale, and many more.
After the warm reception to 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (even if it didn’t exactly light the box office on fire), Hasbro made moves to set up a live-action D&D series at Paramount+–announced just as D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast was at the height of a public relations disaster surrounding attempts to replace the game’s long-running Open Game License. Red Notice‘s Rawson Marshall Thurber was set to oversee the series, and was ultimately joined by Crevello there too, but the show fell apart when both a shifiting of priorities at Paramount and the sale of Hasbro’s former entertainment studio, eOne, to Lionsgate caught it in several mortal attacks of opportunity.
Unsurprisingly, the shift away from Paramount’s involvement means that The Forgotten Realms will be a completely new iteration on the idea, rather than a development of anything Crevello had already attempted at the studio–including the loss of any potential links to Honor Among Thieves, leaving us all still pining that one day that party of stars can gather and venture forth again. For now, this latest roll of the dice could lead to Netflix going all-in on a D&D universe of content, which would fit nicely with its other Wizards of the Coast project, the animated Magic: The Gathering series from Star Trek: Picard‘s Terry Matalas.
We’ll bring you more on Netflix’s plans for Dungeons & Dragons as and when we learn them.
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