Copyright Screen Rant
With the evolution of Dungeons & Dragons from a niche TTRPG to a genuine force in pop culture, we seemed poised for a slew of new TV shows based on DnD. However, aside from references in Stranger Things. the animated Critical Role adaptations, and the criminally underrated Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Hollywood has been slow to dive into the expansive universe of the franchise, which is ripe for adaptation. One such TV show is the long-promised Legend of Drizzt live-action show based on the Forgotten Realms character Drizzt Do'Urden, which has been in development hell for years. What once seemed like a no-brainer to adapt is a project that has lost momentum, with plenty of fans speculating that it was, in fact, the live-action Dungeons & Dragons show that Paramount canceled last year. It's not clear why the adaptation of The Legend of Drizzt books hasn't happened yet, and one big name is equally as frustrated as fans: Drizzt Do'Urden creator himself, R.A. Salvatore. Drizzt Creator R.A. Salvatore Doesn't Know Why The Show Hasn't Happened Yet - But Has A Few Guesses In an interview with ScreenRant's Alisha Grauso about his new book, The Finest Edge of Twilight, which follows Drizzt and Catti-brie's daughter, Breezy, Salvatore touched upon the Drizzt TV show. When referencing speaking to ScreenRant again for upcoming projects, Salvatore said: "Hopefully, we'll have this discussion if they ever do the Drizzt TV show that they keep telling me they want to do. I don't get it. I think, at first, it was because of the color of the skin, and they were afraid." Salvatore, of course, is referring to the problematic racial themes that are associated with the drow race. It's impossible to ignore the fact that Dungeons & Dragons' creator, Gary Gygax, was an avowed white supremacist who believed that the white race had superior biology (via PBS), and that reflects in the races of the game. As the "dark-skinned" Elves, the drow are depicted as being evil and manipulative by nature. In the parameters of classic high fantasy, white, human race were the heroes and "good," while non-human races were depicted as evil or less-than, with non-white, non-human races getting the worst of it; this is essentially the entire good/evil power structure of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. While Gygax is hardly the first fantasy creator to reinforce the outdated and racist structure of old-school high fantasy, he's one of the worst offenders. Ironically, it's Salvatore who helped change the depiction of the dark elves, a.k.a. drow, in Dungeons & Dragons (and fantasy in general). His creation of Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow who fought the malevolent ways of his people to become one of the greatest heroes and champions in Dungeons & Dragons' pantheon, was a seismic shift in fantasy. Drizzt's introduction paved the way for other drow to become heroes rather than villains, and to find their own redemption arcs. It's understandable, then, that anyone making a live-action Drizzt Do'Urden TV show would want to be careful with the racial undertones of the drow race. It's not just the themes that must be handled gracefully, but also the makeup, lest the drow appear as a step above blackface. But R.A. Salvatore's Second Theory About Why Drizzt Hasn't Happened Yet Is Absolutely Correct Still, Hollywood is full of creative and thoughtful people who are used to handling complex stories on screen. It's why R.A. Salvatore also believes that another issue holding back a studio adapting The Legend of Drizzt is that, well...they don't want to adapt The Legend of Drizzt: "I think another reason is because everybody coming in wants to write new Drizzt stories for the show. I have no control over that, but I've made it pretty clear that I'd feel like I was slapped in the face if they did that. I mean, why do you want to use Drizzt, then? Because I've spent 37 years building it." Salvatore is absolutely right to feel this way. Too often, studios and networks buy the rights to some IP, but their adaptation is so far off the source material that it's unclear why they even wanted the IP in the first place. R.A. Salvatore has almost four decades' worth of stories about Drizzt to adapt, and it would be an enormous mistake to not follow them.
