The supernatural Gothic vibes are back in entertainment in a big way. In the past year alone, we’ve had Frankenstein from Guillermo del Toro, The Vampire Lestat on television, and more. And according to a report in Deadline, Netflix is getting in on some of that Goth action with a new series in development based on Ravenloft, the long-running Gothic horror campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. This new dramatic series comes from writer/executive producer John August, executive producer Alfonso Cuarón and Hasbro Entertainment. This has no connection to the Forgotten Realms series Netflix announced a year ago, which is no longer going forward.
The report describes Ravenloft as “a prestige fantasy series where adventure collides with gothic horror and tragic romance.” Now, we know that “prestige fantasy series” means this one is going to have a sizable budget. Ravenloft occurs in the Demiplane of Dread, a reality made of several different dark domains, each ruled by a specific Darklord. The Netflix series will focus on the vampire Darklord Strahd von Zarovich, whose “story of power, love, obsession, and undead transformation charts his origins from tragic antihero to one of Dungeons & Dragons’ most notorious villains.” Ravenloft was first introduced in 1983. It has since gone on to feature in over 100 novels, RPGs, and video games.
John August is no stranger to Gothic vibes, as he’s worked with Tim Burton several times, including Corpse Bride and the vampire comedy Dark Shadows. Hopefully, Ravenloft fares better than that ill-fated film. The big surprise name here is Alfonso Cuarón. The Oscar-winning director of Roma is maybe the last name we’d associate with a D&D adaptation for Netflix. Who knows, maybe he’s just a big RPG fan? There’s no start date given for production as of yet for Ravenloft. And it could go the way of several other Dungeons & Dragons series that never went past the development stage. But we hope Ravenloft is the one to break the current live-action D&D curse.