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

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves featured iconic locations like Neverwinter, used rulebook-accurate spells like speak with dead and reverse gravity, and deployed a genuine piece of Underdark mythology in the form of Themberchaud, the fire-breathing dragon who guards the cavern tunnels beneath the Forgotten Realms. Sadly, despite strong reviews, the movie only grossed $208 million worldwide against a $150 million production budget, a figure that could not justify Paramount’s intended six-film arc after marketing costs were factored in. The failure effectively stranded the franchise before it could build momentum, and in doing so, it also denied live-action audiences a figure who was present in early drafts of the screenplay and later removed: Drizzt Do’Urden, the most beloved character in the entire Forgotten Realms universe.

Drizzt Do’Urden Should Be Part of Netflix’s Dungeons & Dragons Series

After the movie’s release, Honor Among Thieves producer Jeremy Latcham confirmed that Drizzt was the original blueprint for Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page), the stoic, supernaturally skilled ally who guides the film’s party through a substantial portion of the Underdark sequence. According to Latcham, Wizards of the Coast initially pushed to include the character, and early scripts placed him in the role that Xenk eventually filled, with his home city of Menzoberranzan serving as the Underdark’s central location before being replaced by a nameless facsimile. The removal stemmed from a controversy tied to how drow—the race of dark elves to which Drizzt belongs—were being depicted across D&D media, following a 2020 Wizards of the Coast statement addressing race essentialism in the game’s lore. Rather than navigate that debate while finishing a blockbuster, the production pivoted to an original character, preserving the structural function of Drizzt without delivering the genuine article.

While Drizzt was cut from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Netflix is currently developing a Forgotten Realms TV show that could introduce the character to a broader audience. Drizzt Do’Urden first appeared in R.A. Salvatore’s 1988 novel The Crystal Shard as a supporting character in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, and his popularity among readers was so immediate that Salvatore built an entire dedicated series around him. To date, the character has headlined more than 38 novels under The Legend of Drizzt, making him the most prolific protagonist in the history of D&D fiction by a significant margin. A dark elf born in Menzoberranzan, one of the Forgotten Realms’ most dangerous and corrupt cities, Drizzt rejected the violence of his society and chose to live on the surface as a ranger, earning the trust of the wider world through decades of thankless heroism. That backstory gives any writer a built-in dramatic engine that has sustained dozens of fan-favorite stories.

Netflix’s show is specifically set in Forgotten Realms, the same world Drizzt has called home since 1988, and is currently in active development under executive producer Shawn Levy, with Drew Crevello serving as showrunner. In late 2025, Levy confirmed that the project is in “very active development,” with a pilot script already written. The series’ mandate is to explore the breadth of the Forgotten Realms and introduce audiences to the brand’s most famous characters. Given the status of Drizzt as the most famous character in the setting’s entire history, Netflix is almost obliged to include the ranger, especially since the long-form structure of a television series is far more effective than a two-hour film to deal with complex well-stabilished characters. The idea of a Dritzz TV show has been circulating for years, so maybe Netflix’s production could finally make it come to life.

The Forgotten Realms is currently in active development at Netflix, with no official premiere date announced.

Should Netflix build The Forgotten Realms around Drizzt Do’Urden, or does the franchise need an entirely new hero to find its live-action footing? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!