Netflix’s Dungeons & Dragons Show Can Finally Unleash the Best Character the $208M Movie Cut

If you watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and thought 'Where the hell is the twin-scimitar dark elf everyone won’t shut up about?', you were not alone. Here’s why Drizzt Do'Urden didn’t make the cut for the movie, and why Netflix ’s Forgotten Realms show is perfectly set up to fix that.

Quick refresher: D&D, the Realms, and why this matters

Dungeons & Dragons launched in 1974 from Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson as a structured way to tell fantasy stories together. In the 50 years since, it went from basement hobby to a core piece of geek culture. A big reason it stuck: official settings. The most famous is the Forgotten Realms, built by Ed Greenwood and folded into D&D canon in 1987. That world is the backbone of Honor Among Thieves.

Honor Among Thieves got the vibe right, but the numbers wrong

The movie actually leaned into the rulebook in fun ways: Neverwinter shows up, spells like 'speak with dead' and 'reverse gravity ' are used by the book, and there’s even Themberchaud, the fire-breathing dragon tied to real Underdark lore. Critics were into it. The box office was less enthusiastic. It made $208 million worldwide on a $150 million production budget. Once you factor in marketing, that wasn’t enough to justify Paramount ’s planned six-film arc. Momentum: stopped.

The Drizzt of it all

Here’s the inside scoop that stings a little: producer Jeremy Latcham has said Drizzt Do'Urden was the original template for Xenk Yendar (played by Rege-Jean Page), the stoic fighter who helps the party through the Underdark. Early drafts reportedly put Drizzt in that role, and even set the Underdark sequence in his home city, Menzoberranzan, before swapping it out for a generic stand-in.

So why the swap? In 2020, Wizards of the Coast publicly addressed race essentialism in D&D lore, which put a spotlight on how drow (Drizzt’s people) were depicted across the brand. Rather than wade into that while trying to finish a big studio movie, the team created Xenk to fill the same story function without bringing the entire drow conversation into the film. Smart for the schedule, sure. Still a missed moment for fans who’ve waited decades to see the Forgotten Realms hero in live action.

Enter Netflix’s Forgotten Realms series

Netflix is developing a series set squarely in the Forgotten Realms, with Shawn Levy executive producing and Drew Crevello serving as showrunner. By late 2025, Levy was already saying the project was moving forward and that a pilot script exists.

'very active development'

The stated goal is to explore the breadth of the Realms and introduce the brand’s most recognizable characters. That list starts with Drizzt.

Why Drizzt is the layup

Drizzt first showed up as a supporting character in R.A. Salvatore’s 1988 novel 'The Crystal Shard' (the Icewind Dale Trilogy). Fans immediately latched on, so Salvatore spun him into his own saga. We’re now north of 38 novels under 'The Legend of Drizzt,' making him the most prolific lead character in all of D&D fiction.

The elevator pitch still plays: Drizzt, a dark elf born in the ruthless city of Menzoberranzan, rejects that culture’s cruelty, heads to the surface, and spends decades proving himself as a ranger and a hero. That baked-in conflict has fueled fan-favorite stories for years, and TV is the better medium for it. A two-hour movie can’t unpack his internal code, his relationships, and the cultural baggage around the drow the way a season can.

• He’s the franchise ’s most famous character, period.
• There’s a massive, road-tested canon (38+ novels) to adapt or mine.
• His outsider-to-hero arc is tailor-made for serialized storytelling.
• The show can tackle the nuances around drow depiction with time and context, something a film couldn’t juggle while also being a crowd-pleaser.
• Fans have wanted a Drizzt series for years; this is the cleanest shot yet.

Where things stand

Netflix’s Forgotten Realms is in active development. No premiere date yet. If the mandate is to tour the Realms and spotlight the icons, it’s hard to imagine a version that doesn’t put Drizzt Do'Urden front and center. And after Honor Among Thieves blinked, TV might finally be the place he belongs.