The Wheel of Time season 1 just reached its surprising grand conclusion two days ago and Amazon Studios co-head Vernon Sanders is already ambitious to adapt all 15 of Robert Jordan’s fantasy books.
The finale shocked the book fans and had many people feeling divided as it ended differently than the first book.
However, the books are still the backbone of the story, and while talking to IGN, Sanders said that the studio has plans to develop all of them eventually,
Our ideal is to work with [showrunner] Rafe [Judkins] and the team on the full thing. Obviously, that’s a ways down the road. So we’re focused on where we are right now. And Rafe and the team have just shared the first few episodes of season two, and I wish I could get those out to everyone right away. They’re just, they’re great.
The series was renewed for season 2 even before the first one premiered. Sanders praised Rafe Judkins’ strong pitch for this decision, calling it “so compelling that we had every confidence that we had a show that people would love and a show that demanded to go on.”
Judkins had commented a while ago that The Wheel of Time’s budget was “tiny” compared to Amazon’s other big (probably the biggest) gamble, the upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series.
When asked about this, Sanders clarified that Wheel of Time is one of Amazon’s “most expensive shows” and noted that the studio is spending more on season 2 as compared to season 1.
Sanders and the company’s faith in Judkins’ vision paid off as the first three episodes premiered to about 1.16 billion minutes of watch time, as per Nielsen’s reports.
Views matter, but to hold an audience for, presumably, 15 more seasons, the creators might want to work closely with the source material. Even though the series was fairly well-received, many book fans complained that it deviated too much from the books.
While talking to EW after the finale premiered, Judkins explained why the series needed to deviate from the books,
A lot of the changes we’re making in our adaptation are to serve the series as a whole more than just the first book… The Wheel of Time starts out in a way that’s hard to make a clean adaptation for TV, but then as you get into the later books, it really is built along a clear, clean TV structure of an ensemble story… We made a lot of changes in the first season to make sure that you could see all the stories of the five main leads.
Judkins said that the newer seasons will pace all the characters’ stories differently and that some characters will be following their arc from book two, whereas some might be on their book three stories.
The showrunner added that this change was essential to bring it all together and tell a coherent story. After all, it’s not easy to include everything as-is when you’re trying to adapt a lore that spans 17,000 pages.
About The Wheel Of Time
The Wheel Of Time is an upcoming American epic fantasy television series set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video. The series is based on Robert Jordan’s novel series of the same name and is produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios, with Rafe Judkins serving as showrunner.
Rosamund Pike plays Moiraine. Other main cast members are Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran, Josha Stradowski as Rand al’Thor, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Zoë Robins as Nynaeve al’Meara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon, and Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere.
The series follows Moiraine, a member of the Aes Sedai, a powerful organization of women who can use magic. She takes a group of five young people on a journey around the world, believing one of them might be the reincarnation of the Dragon, a powerful individual prophesied to either save the world or destroy it.
No Comments on Ambitious Amazon Wants Wheel of Time Series to Adapt All 15 Books