Time to roll 20 to cast your best “Oh god, don’t let this happen” spell, Dungeons & Dragons fans. Deadline is reporting that Red Notice director Rawson Marshall Thurber has been tapped as executive producer to creatively oversee the new live-action Dungeons & Dragons TV show for Hasbro. In addition to executive producing, Thurber will also write and direct the pilot episode.
According to Netflix data, Red Notice was a smash hit. Although, while a ton of people evidently tuned into the film, it wasn’t actually any good. His previous action movie, Skyscraper, wasn’t all that inspiring either. To be fair, his direction work isn’t terrible, but both films had a woeful screenplay that turned on cliche and absurdity and not in any good ways. His earlier comedic work like Dodgeball and We’re the Millers was actually pretty strong, so maybe he can find some of that magic for D&D.
The Dungeons & Dragons TV series with Thurber doesn’t yet have a home as eOne, the entertainment company owned by Hasbro, puts it together, but buyers have been lining up for the property. The series will be the flagship TV show for an expanding universe that Hasbro is building and will tie in with the upcoming film that recently wrapped production. A fantasy property with a built-in fanbase and a massive amount of worlds / times / characters to explore is gold for any streamer.
Netflix already has a relationship with Rawson Marshall Thurber thanks to Red Notice, but it may not be the right fit for a Dungeons & Dragons TV show since it already has a massive fantasy universe it’s building with The Witcher. Amazon likewise has Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time already, so it may not want to muddy the waters too much either. Disney could swoop in to try to lock up a fantasy franchise of its own though.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what Hasbro does with the series. At least fans (and non-fans) already have a good Dungeons & Dragons show to tune into.
