While the newDungeons & Dragonsmovie wrapped filming in August this year and was expected to be a standalone reboot of the franchise, it has become apparent through recent interviews that the film will connect to a much grander plan for the popular gaming property as a host of TV shows are heading to the small screen from eOne. President of Global Television for Hasbro’s entertainment division, Michael Lombardo, recently revealed in an interview that among the many Hasbro-based projects coming in the not-so-distant future.
Dungeons & Dragonshas had a mixed run on TV and film, with the 1980s animated series having a very loose connection to its namesake but being extremely popular when produced by TSR and Marvel Productions. In contrast, a live-action movie released in 2000 and starring Jeremy Irons, Marlon Wayans, Thora Birch and Justin Whalin, was critically mauled and didn’t manage to make back its $45 million budget. This time around, both the new movie and the planned series will hope tobring the world ofDungeons & Dragonsto lifein live-action with greater success than the last run out.
“Our big focus right now isDungeons & Dragons,” Lombardo toldDeadline. “When I initially sat with Darren [Throop, eOne’s CEO] and Steve [Bertram, eOne’s President of Film and Television], knowing that Dungeons is part of the Hasbro portfolio was incredibly exciting to me. It’s a world and part of that is, its challenges are wow, where do you start? We don’t want it tojust be one showso we are building out, developing out a multi-pronged approach for television, a number of scripted shows and unscripted, and we hope to be taking this out to the marketplace early next year.”
Lombardo continued to confess that he doesn’t play the game himself, but has found a lot of filmmakers who are extremely passionate about the world it inhabits. “I was not aDungeons & Dragonskid, and maybe I’m too old for it, butthe people that played it, they continue to play it, it’s so meaningful. They’re so passionate about it, and we have had numerous discussions and a lot of interesting filmmakers, it’s just finding the right team that has legs, that feels fresh in this moment. We have a big movie that’s in post right now that will come out first so, we’re trying to also navigate the brand more holistically so that the movie feels not apart from but connected somehow to a bigger universe.”
While there is currently a lot of new projects coming for fans ofDungeons & Dragonsfrom eOne, one unscripted show,Dungeons & Dragons Presents: Call to Adventure, which sees the show’s cast playingD&Din real time through the participation of the audience, aired its premiere episode on G4 Twitch and YouTube channels. While this is a low-key addition to theD&Dfranchise outside the games themselves, it is a very good stepping stone to thebig budget productionsheading our way in the next few years.
