Netflix’s Forgotten Realms D&D TV Show is Officially Canceled
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Article Summary
- The Netflix Forgotten Realms live action D&D TV series has officially been canceled.
- The show was first announced in February 2025 with Stranger Things director Shawn Levy overseeing the project.
- No reason was provided by Netflix for the cancelation, but the difficulty of adapting the material may be a factor.
- Netflix is pivoting to a new D&D TV show set in Ravenloft with the involvement of screenwriter John August and Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón.
Back in February 2025, Deadline reported that Netflix was developing a new live action Dungeons & Dragons TV series entitled The Forgotten Realms, which was being created by Stranger Things and Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy. We’ve since learned that development on the show has officially ended.
The news is somewhat bittersweet as Deadline also reported that in the wake of the cancelation, a new Ravenloft TV show was now in the works at Netflix, with a new team consisting of screenwriter John August and Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón.
Below, we look at what the Forgotten Realms television series would have been about and why it was canceled.
What was the Forgotten Realms D&D TV series about?
According to the February 2025 Deadline article (and an associated IMDB page), the show would have taken place in Faerûn and was being overseen by Shawn Levy (who is a producer and director on Stranger Things and recently co-wrote and directed Deadpool & Wolverine). It also featured the involvement of producer Dan Levine and was going to be run through the production company 21 Laps Entertainment.
Writing and showrunning duties were being overseen by Drew Crevello (who is best known for the TV miniseries WeCrashed) and Crevello had reportedly already written the pilot prior to Forgotten Realms being canceled.
Why was the Forgotten Realms TV show canceled?
As of this writing, no specific reason has been given by Netflix for why the show was canceled, but the difficulty of adapting the material to the small screen seems to be a likely candidate. In fact, in a November 2026 interview with Collide, Shawn Levy noted: “I think that the reason it’s taken so long and the reason why it is a challenging process is you’re not adapting story IP. You’re adapting a world and a lexicon and a spirit, but story needs to be invented largely from scratch. And it needs to be invented in a way that feels organic to everything that’s great about D&D. So that one is in very active every day chipping-away-at-it development at Netflix.”
Levy has not commented on the cancelation since the Deadline article was published and his reps have not responded to our request for information.
It’s worth noting, however, that the Forgotten Realms isn’t the only TV series to fail its death saving throw versus Hollywood. In fact, in early 2023, Hasbro announced that a live action D&D series was in development for Paramount+. It was also to be set in the Forgotten Realms and was created by Rawson Marhsall Thurber (writer and director of the 2021 Netflix film Red Notice). It was later given the axe in June 2024. Notably, Drew Crevello was also brought on as executive producer and showrunner for that series, which means he has since been involved in two scrapped D&D shows set in the Forgotten Realms .
Similarly, in late 2024, actor and producer Joe Manganiello had shopped around a Dragonlance TV series that eventually fell apart due to a lack of studio interest (notably, Manganiello has since taken on a role as chief creative officer of the new D&D Icons publishing line).
Final Thoughts
Despite Dungeons & Dragons’ incredibly popularity, the last time the game actually made it to the small screen was in 1983 with the CBS cartoon series. Four decades later, the closest we’ve got has been been the D&D episode of the Amazon Secret Level TV series.
Still there’s reason to be optimistic, with the Ravenloft TV show in the works and a new Baldur’s Gate TV series at HBO being spearheaded by Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin. It remains to be seen, however, if these projects can survive Hollywood development.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with more information as it becomes available.
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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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