One of the fan-favourite Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings is heading to the small screen. Netflix has announced that a live-action series adaptation based on the gothic-horror setting Ravenloft is in the works, with Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Gravity) executive producing alongside John August, who’s been attached as screenwriter.
As Deadline reports, the project is a collaboration between the streamer and the Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast. Aptly titled Ravenloft, it follows “the making of the vampire Darklord Strahd von Zarovich, whose story of power, love, obsession, and undead transformation charts his origins from tragic antihero to one of Dungeons & Dragons’ most notorious villains.” Additional details, including episode count and a release window, were not announced.
What’s known is that the forthcoming adventure will succeed Netflix’s other, now-cancelled series inspired by the tabletop role-playing game’s The Forgotten Realms storyline. Announced last year, it would have seen Deadpool & Wolverine‘s Shawn Levy at the helm and was set to take place in the titular home setting of some of the most popular D&D spin-offs, including Honor Among Thieves and Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate games.
On that note, the director duo behind Honor Among Thieves has some optimistic news to share. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein confirmed to The Playlist that a screenplay for a proposed sequel is already completed, and that rights holder Hasbro is committed to finding a new home for it.
“I think Hasbro is a big believer in it, and if they can figure out a studio partner to make it work, they’ll want to proceed. As are our producers,” said the latter.
“I mean, look, it’s something that is near and dear to our hearts in that we loved making the first one,” Daley added. “We fell in love with the characters, and there’s so much potential in a sequel because the first act isn’t filled with exposition or introduction to this family that we’ve already become accustomed to. So you can kind of launch right into the story, which is really nice.”
This update comes after Goldstein previously shared that a follow-up to the 2023 film remains unlikely, citing financial reasons. Despite earning critical acclaim and an enthusiastic following, the fantasy pic fell short of expectations, grossing US$206.5 million against an estimated production of US$150 million, shared between Paramount and Hasbro’s subsidiary Entertainment One. The pair has acknowledged the underperformance, attributing it to “not-so-good” timing, per Daley:
“It was very much a product of not-so-great timing when the first movie came out. It came out four days before The Super Mario Movie, which broke records. It came out a month after Wizards of the Coast changed the official gaming license, prompting many D&D fans to boycott the game, and I don’t think the marketing did enough to tell people who weren’t already fans that this movie might be for them. Yeah, so it was a perfect storm of all of those elements, and we’ll see.”
Launched in 1983 by creators Tracy and Laura Hickman, Ravenloft started as an adventure module before becoming an official campaign setting. It has spawned novels, tabletop RPG modules, video games, and companion rulebooks, remaining a big part of the D&D experience to this day. The inspired series is the latest addition to a slate of upcoming projects, including a Baldur’s Gate TV series from The Last of Us co-creator and showrunner Craig Mazin and a new third-person action-adventure title, Dungeons & Dragons: Warlock, which is set to bow in 2027. A Baldur’s Gate II remake is also reportedly in the works.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
