The planned Dungeons & Dragons movie has been canceled, which is especially disappointing considering one movie with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. Paramount+ had partnered with Hasbro, the owners of the Dungeons & Dragons IP, to bring the tabletop role-playing game to life in an episodic format. It was planned to be part of Hasbro’s larger push to create media based on its IPs, such as the recent Barbie movie and the upcoming Transformers One movie. Those plans have recently hit a major, and disappointing, setback.

Paramount+’s Dungeons & Dragons TV show was canceled despite having received a series order, and development of the show has stalled. It is possible that the show could continue in a way with another production company, as Hasbro seems motivated to create a live-action show, but this still acts as a major setback for the franchise. Even if another company agrees to produce the show, it will likely be a long time from now, as Hasbro has several other projects in production. Even with those possibilities, the news of the Dungeons & Dragons show’s cancelation is still very disheartening.

Dungeons & Dragons’ Live-Action TV Show Setback Is Hugely Disappointing

Dungeons & Dragons is the most popular tabletop roleplaying game ever, and it has so much potential to be made into a successful show. There are so many fascinating parts of the game and its lore, from unique monsters and classes to thrilling adventures. Any one of those features would have been incredible to see in live-action, and the Dungeons & Dragons show could have been a chance to highlight all the things that make D&D so great. Its cancelation is made even worse by the fact that there is already a very good Dungeons & Dragons adaptation from 2023.

Dungeons & Dragons Already Got A Raw Deal With Honor Among Thieves

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was one of the best movies of 2023, and it even garnered an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of 91%. According to Box Office Mojo, however, Honor Among Thieves only earned $208 million at the global box office against a budget of $150 million, despite the positive reviews it received. When factoring in other costs, like marketing and distribution, Honor Among Thieves likely didn’t turn a profit at the box office. Honor Among Thieves was a great movie, and the fact that it was largely unsuccessful was just the first disappointment for the live-action franchise.

There are several reasons Honor Among Thieves bombed at the box office, most of which were not the movie’s fault. Some outside factors that contributed to Honor Among Thieves‘ poor performance included its marketing, which was minimal and didn’t paint a great picture of what to expect from the film, and its release date, which put it up against The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a movie that dominated the box office. Honor Among Thieves truly had the odds stacked against it, which made its failure to turn a profit even more disappointing.

Why Dungeons & Dragons Is So Hard To Get Right In Live-Action

Dungeons & Dragons has a massively diverse fan base. While that’s one of the game’s strengths, it also poses a big problem with trying to create a live-action adaptation of it. There are many hardcore fans who want a faithful, true to the game experience out of an adaptation. However, there are far more people who only have a moderate interest in it, as well as general audiences who know very little about Dungeons & Dragons. Those competing audiences make it so that satisfying one would lose the other: creating a faithful game experience could alienate casual audiences, while making a more generic fantasy movie would disappoint dedicated fans.

The gameplay itself also makes Dungeons & Dragons difficult to put to film. The average campaign can take many different directions, from whimsical, joking moments among friends to hugely dramatic final confrontations. A film can replicate that unique blend of tones, but it’s exceedingly difficult to do so. A D&D campaign also takes significantly longer than any show or movie, which would leave an adaptation with far less time to make its world and characters endearing to audiences.

Those problems were a factor in why Honor Among Thieves didn’t succeed as much as it could have, and they likely contributed in some way to Paramount+’s decision to cancel the Dungeons & Dragons show. The show also would have been a chance to address those issues and succeed where Honor Among Thieves couldn’t, which makes its cancelation even worse. It’s now unclear when the next live-action Dungeons & Dragons adaptation will be made, meaning it could be quite a while until the franchise gets another chance to capture the game’s magic.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo