Joe Manganiello, one of the most famous Dungeons & Dragons players in Hollywood, said he still wants his Dragonlance TV series to come to fruition despite its cancellation several years ago.
The Justice League and One Piece actor was hired as showrunner and screenwriter on the show years ago, promising a live-action adaptation of one of the stories that helped introduce him to tabletop role-playing. After a series of snags, though, Manganiello eventually went on to confirm that his live-action Dragonlance would no longer come to be.
IGN asked Manganiello about his ill-fated D&D project during a conversation at Lucca Comics and Games 2026. He walked us through how, after five years of work, things fell apart, while also teasing that the door for a Dragonlance TV show – and even his documentary – will never close.
“When both of those got put on the shelf due to a change of leadership – due to shuffling going on within [Entertainment One] – those projects became nobody’s child,” he explained. “I mean, I was hired by Michael Lombardo, who was my old boss at HBO. He hired me to create a television show, to create the next Game of Thrones for him, but then he was gone.
“He’s my guy. He’s the guy who understood my pitch. He’s the one who believed in me. He’s the one who saw what it could be, and he’s gone. And then, my other producing partner, he was gone, too. So, the two people that I was there with are gone, and the people there had different ideas. All of a sudden, those things become the priority as I’m turning in my script. Now, my people aren’t there. Same with the documentary.”
Manganiello went on to say that, as his hands-on time in the D&D universe began to fall apart, he had “nobody helping to fight with” him to bring then-in-development projects to life. With Dragonlance officially confirmed to be canned in 2024, it was around this time the actor thought “OK, I’m out,” but as he told us, “there is new hope.”
“[President of Wizards of the Coast & Hasbro Digital Games] Dan Ayoub is a fantastic leader. He gets it, and we work really well together,” he continued. “I think there are talented people within the building now that are doing some amazing things, and we’re going to do some amazing things together.
“The dream was always, always to be off running a Dragonlance series, and I will never give up hope on that. And I think there’s a lot of people that share that vision. I think the documentary with Danny Ayoub is actually going to be closer to getting out as well.”
That’s two big updates on two D&D projects that many fans believed were destined to never see the light of day. Still, as the pieces move into place on the board behind the scenes, it’s best not to get hopes up too high until Manganiello and the rest of his team have more to announce. For example, Ayoub took up his position as president just four days ago after previously serving as senior vice president of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s unclear how this title change may have affected any plans Manganiello mentioned during our interview.
The world of Dungeons & Dragons is trying to come to the live-action world in more ways than one. After a movie adaptation, Honor Among Thieves, launched to critical success and lackluster commercial response in 2023, we’ve still yet to see a sequel. There is allegedly a second script floating around somewhere, but whether it will leap off the page remains to be seen. For more on Manganiello, you can read about what he had to share from his time working as Deathstroke on Ben Affleck’s canceled Batman movie.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).