Dungeons & Dragons, the most popular tabletop role-playing game in the world, has long attempted to make it to the screen. The franchise has had successes, including a cult-classic 1980s cartoon series and the 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which didn’t set the box office on fire but is already well on its way to becoming a beloved fan-favorite. However, there have also been a number of critical botches, including the original 2000 feature film and a number of in-development projects that never made it off the character sheet. Now, Netflix is rolling the dice on another project, with an acclaimed director on board.

Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón made his English-language feature debut with 1995’s A Little Princess, and broke out with the 2001 Oscar-nominated erotic dramedy Y tu mamá también. He proved his fantasy bonafides with 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, then took audiences into the bleak near-future and the terrors of outer space with Children of Men and Gravity, winning a Best Director Oscar for the latter. Cuarón already has a relationship with Netflix; his autobiographical 2018 film, Roma, debuted on the streamer, and garnered him another Best Director statuette. This won’t be his first foray into streaming TV; in 2024 he created the thriller miniseries Disclaimer for Apple TV.

As reported by Deadline, Netflix is developing Ravenloft, a new series based on the horror-tinged Dungeons & Dragons setting of the same name. First created in 1983, Ravenloft is a collection of mist-shrouded territories, each ruled by a Darklord; the most notorious of the Darklords is the vampire Strahd von Zarovich. Other domains of Ravenloft pay homage to Dracula and Frankenstein. Cuarón will executive produce the series; it will be written by frequent Tim Burton collaborator John August (Big Fish), who will also executive produce alongside Hasbro‘s Gabriel Marano.

What Happened to Netflix’s ‘Forgotten Realms’ Series?

Another live-action Netflix Dungeons & Dragons series was reportedly in the works; based on the popular Forgotten Realms setting, it was to have been written by Drew Crevello (WeCrashed) and executive produced by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things). However, as reported by Deadline, that project is no longer in development.

Ravenloft, a new Dungeons & Dragons TV series, is in development at Netflix; no release date has yet been announced.

via Collider