Dungeons & Dragons has had a chaotic couple of years in movies and TV shows. Paramount’s 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves earned strong reviews and enthusiastic word of mouth, but still bombed at the box office, leading Paramount to scrap plans for a sequel and a live-action TV show. Now, Hasbro is actively pursuing a second Honor Among Thieves movie. Meanwhile, Netflix began to build its own live-action take on the Dungeons & Dragons universe in early 2025, when it put a series titled The Forgotten Realms into development with Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy attached. That project is officially dead, but there’s also good news to soften the blow.
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Netflix has officially replaced The Forgotten Realms with Ravenloft, a new live-action Dungeons & Dragons series based in the game’s gothic horror campaign setting. Deadline reports that Ravenloft is being written and executive produced by John August, the screenwriter behind Tim Burton collaborations like Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, with Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón executive producing through his Esperanto Filmoj banner alongside producers Richard Schwartz and Gaby Rodriguez. Gabriel Marano will also executive produce on behalf of Hasbro Entertainment. The series centers on the vampire Darklord Strahd von Zarovich, chronicling his origin as Ravenloft’s first ruler of the undead. No cast has been attached to the project, and Netflix has not set an episode count or release timeline, with Ravenloft still in the early stages of development.
What Is Ravenloft in Dungeons & Dragons and Who Is Darklord Strahd von Zarovich?
In tabletop terms, a campaign setting is the fictional world and rules framework where a Dungeons & Dragons story unfolds, covering everything from geography and history to the specific flavor of magic and monsters a Dungeon Master draws on to run a game. Wizards of the Coast has published dozens of these settings since the game’s 1974 debut, with some becoming more famous than others. Forgotten Realms is the game’s flagship setting, created by Ed Greenwood as a personal setting in 1967 and formally adopted as an official Dungeons & Dragons world by 1987. Centered on the continent of Faerûn, Forgotten Realms is a sprawling high fantasy world built around meddling gods, wizards, sword battles, and adventurers trying to uncover the treasures hidden in dangerous places. Forgotten Realms has become the default backdrop for most modern Dungeons & Dragons media, including the Baldur’s Gate video games and Honor Among Thieves itself.
Ravenloft trades in high-fantasy for horror, with stories unfolding in the Domains of Dread, a network of mist-locked pocket realms where each Darklord is trapped by the same sin that damned them. Wizards of the Coast, the tabletop game’s publisher, reinforced the setting’s staying power this past June with a new sourcebook titled Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, updated for the game’s 2024 rules revision. The domains have already inspired more than a hundred novels, modules, and video games since Strahd’s 1983 debut, making Ravenloft a beloved setting. For Netflix, the pivot lines up with what the streamer has been offering, as the horror-tinged aesthetic of the setting fits the audience of hits like Wednesday and Stranger Things.
As for Darklord Strahd von Zarovich, the character in Netflix’s series, he first appeared in the 1983 module Ravenloft by creators Tracy and Laura Hickman. Starting as a mortal warlord, Strahd conquered the valley of Barovia alongside his younger brother, Sergei, and built Castle Ravenloft to secure his rule. However, he fell obsessively in love with Sergei’s betrothed, Tatyana. When Strahd couldn’t win Tatyana’s affection, he struck a bargain with dark powers. Strahd murdered Sergei on the eve of the wedding, and Tatyana chose to leap to her death. The dark powers Strahd sought dammed him to eternal undeath, sealing him inside Barovia’s borders as the first and most notorious of Ravenloft’s Darklords. It will be curious to see how Netflix adapts the story, and whether the streamer intends to expand the tale beyond Strahd’s transformation, or if the series can perhaps become an anthology focusing on different Darklords as seasons go by.
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