Dungeons & Dragons TV show from Red Notice director adds to movie plans

Which Hollywood creative will have the strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma to finally bring Dungeons & Dragons to screen in a post-Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones landscape? Wizards of the Coast has updated Polygon with a new update. This suggests that the gaming company has an extensive plan to bring the property to life.

This week, entertainment company eOne, now owned by Hasbro in order to develop the toy conglomerate’s IP for film and television, confirmed that Red Notice Skyscraper writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber was in the early stages of developing a Dungeons & Dragons television series. Thurber is set to write and direct a pilot for the series, though there’s no confirmation on where the project’s focus will ultimately lie.

Last May, during the summer kickoff event, Wizards of the Coast floated the idea that a live-action D&D show would likely focus on Drizzt Do’Urden, the drow, first introduced in R.A. Salvatore’s novel The Crystal Shard. Many believed that the show was a pitch to Hasbro, eOne and Wizards of the Coast at the time. John Wick The Falcon, and the Winter Soldier writer Derek Kolstad. But while a representative for Wizards of the Coast can’t confirmOr deny if that project is in development, Polygon has learned that Kolstad’s project remains just a pitch. For now, Thurber’s series is the only one in confirmed development.

Wizards of the Coast’s attempts to crack a Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time equivalent for D&D won’t impede the company’s big-screen ambition. A Dungeons & Dragons movie, written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the duo behind Game NightAlready in the works: Chris Pine is the star of the ensemble. Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page, Fast and the Furious’ Michelle Rodriguez, and Paddington 2,’s Hugh Grant in the mix.

With the tabletop business roaring, and successful actual play brands like Critical Role finding a way to adapt their adventures into screen stories — see Amazon’s new animated series Legend of Vox Machina — it’s only a matter of time before Wizards of the Coast gets one of its projects in front of audiences, and finally relieves Jeremy Irons of whatever horrible memories he possess from the 2000 movie version. Eep!