Dungeons & Dragons TV Shows Are “Big Focus” for Hasbro’s eOne

Expect to see a lot more Dungeons & Dragons on your television screen soon. Recently, Deadline spoke with eOne’s Michael Lombardo, the President of Global Television for Hasbro’s entertainment division. Lombardo spoke about the company’s strategy for developing series based on various Hasbro IPs, including Dungeons & Dragons, the popular tabletop roleplaying game that comes with nearly 50 years of lore, characters, and stories built in. During the interview, Lombardo noted that Dungeons & Dragons was a priority for eOne, with multiple TV shows in development. 

“Our big focus right now is Dungeons & Dragons,” Lombardo told Deadline. “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 to just be one show so 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.”

While Lombardo isn’t a D&D player himself, he’s found a number of filmmakers who are passionate about the game and world. “I was not a Dungeons & Dragons kid, and maybe I’m too old for it, but the people that played it, they continue to play it, it’s so meaningful,” Lombardo said. “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.”

ComicBook.com has reported on the D&D movie in length, which will be released in early 2023. We’ve also reported on several D&D series in pre-production, including one being developed by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad. As for unscripted shows, G4 just aired the premiere episode of its new actual play series Dungeons & Dragons Presents: Call to Adventure, which features the cast playing D&D in real time with audience participation.