The Wheel of Time is of great interest to TV fantasy fans because it has the potential to be the next Game of Thrones. Its sprawling world and gigantic cast of characters make it the natural choice for any network that might want to get in on the epic fantasy action. Plus, the pilot starred well-known actor Billy Zane.
Outside of some terrible computer special effects, the production values were solid. And it was based on a beloved book series. The answer to that has very little to do with quality control and everything to do with how TV networks and movie studios handle adaptations of popular material. The contracts governing those adaptations create situations like this all the time. Begun in and concluded in , The Wheel of Time is a book cycle complete with a page prequel published in that puts the epic in epic fantasy.
A plot summary would be impossible. Suffice to say, there's good; scruffier, antiheroic good; and evil. Book sales figures are hard to pin down, but as of , the series had sold 44 million copies , making it one of the best-selling series since the heights of J.
Author Robert Jordan's skills with world-building resulted in a series that boasts an incredibly devoted fan community that would love a TV series or film adaptation. Jordan died in , and the final three books were completed by Brandon Sanderson from his notes.
Thanks to the huge success of HBO's Game of Thrones , TV and film are hungry for grittier adaptations of fantasy novels, and Wheel of Time more than fits that description.
Thus, an adaptation seems like an inevitability. A short-lived attempt to get a series version of Wheel of Time off the ground was first made by NBC in Red Eagle first exercised its adaptation rights with a comic book adaptation in In , it actually got so far as to sign a deal with Universal to produce film versions of the books.
Remember Universal. Though it appears to have nothing to do with the FXX pilot, it will be important later. Significantly, if you go to Red Eagle's website , which hasn't been updated since , it appears to be a company that exists solely to attempt adaptations of Jordan's books. It's done nothing else of note.
Wheel of Time films didn't materialize, to Jordan's anger and consternation. For more on the lengthy adaptation headaches, check out this excellent timeline of Red Eagle's mismanagement of the property from Adam Whitehead.
Thus, the pilot appears to be a bit of a rush job, created to beat the February 11 deadline. It was filmed mere weeks ago, according to its director , then rushed to air. It has every appearance of being a last-ditch attempt by Red Eagle to retain the rights to Jordan's series. Most contracts between creators and those who buy adaptation rights to said creations have built-in expiration dates when the rights revert to the creator. These expiration dates vary, based on how much rights-purchasers wish to pay.
But these expiration dates also usually include a crucial caveat. If the person who buys the adaptation rights keeps making adaptations of the original property, the rights will usually stay with them. Sony, for instance, owns the movie rights to Marvel's Spider-Man and all associated characters, so long as it keeps making Spider-Man movies. That's why the studio keeps rebooting the character, lest the rights revert to Marvel. Even with the recent deal to bring Spider-Man to Marvel movies, Sony is essentially renting out the character to Marvel Studios, as my colleague Alex Abad-Santos pointed out.
The practice of making something just to keep the adaptation rights is a time-honored one in Hollywood. Fox's Fantastic Four movie coming out in August is an example of a big-budget film made within a timeframe that suggests that the studio mostly wanted to retain its rights.
Or look back at the s to see a film produced by Roger Corman among others do exactly the same thing with exactly the same characters, thanks to the ultra-low-budget Fantastic Four film. Well, mostly. It's not entirely clear. Since we don't have access to the contract between Red Eagle and Jordan's company, Bandersnatch Group to which the rights would revert if Red Eagle lost them , we can't know for sure.
But in that io9 report, Red Eagle sure seems to think it's lived up to its contract in order for its hold on the rights to be renewed. It's not clear for how long that renewal would last, either.
But you can bet there are lots of networks and studios slavering at the opportunity to turn Wheel of Time into a series, particularly since everybody in TV is looking for their own Game of Thrones now to the degree that even Netflix is rumored to be adapting the video game The Legend of Zelda into a series.
And Red Eagle has proved singularly unable to get this project moving forward. If a lawsuit can be filed, it almost certainly will be. Rigney, Jordan's widow, said in a statement :. It was made without my knowledge or cooperation.
I never saw the script. No one associated with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Even so, later seasons of Wheel of Time will still be unable to compete with the pure shock factor of events presented in Westeros.
In keeping with its more traditional style and structure, Wheel of Time largely takes its time setting up big events, then delivers on them. Expanding Wheel of Time's characters and mythology is more important to the series than Red Weddings and other shocking reversals.
Viewers looking for a gritty, borderline nihilistic replacement for Game of Thrones will likely be disappointed by Wheel of Time , and it hurts the upcoming adaption just comparing the two. To do so could risk damaging the integrity of the series, which is as strong as it is in large part due to the massive character growth the lead characters experience over the course of the saga.
While Wheel of Time is more old-fashioned than some of its modern contemporaries, it remains a beloved series, and a faithful adaptation will surely win over fans of the book series as well as genuine fans of the fantasy genre.
As a number of changes to the first Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World , have already been confirmed—a romance between lead characters Rand and Egwene , for starters—there may be some cause for concern that the show is taking some cues from Game of Thrones. Audiences will find out when Wheel of Time releases on November 19th.
Owen Danoff is a features writer for Screen Rant, covering movies and TV shows he would be watching and taking about anyway. Owen has been an avid consumer of science fiction and fantasy books, films, television shows, and video games for most of his life, and credits them for his love of storytelling and writing in general.
Owen is also a songwriter and musician with a history of releasing his own music as well as collaborating with other artists. When not writing, Owen is usually thinking about writing, or playing Apex Legends. By Owen Danoff Published Oct 26,
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