Amazon Greenlights Season One of The Wheel of Time

[Jofwu]

Amusing fiction about the script being approved followed by a few press release snippets:

http://www.wheeloftime.tv/2018/10/amazon-greenlights-season-one-of-wheel.html

From Variety:

Quote

Amazon Studios has ordered “The Wheel of Time,” an action fantasy series based on Robert Jordan’s bestselling fantasy novels, which have sold more than 90 million copies worldwide. Rafe Judkins (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) adapted the material into a series and serves as showrunner.
...
Set in an epic world where magic exists but only women can use it, “The Wheel of Time” follows Moiraine, a member of the shadowy and influential all-female organization called the “Aes Sedai,” as she embarks on a dangerous journey with five young men and women across the world. Moiraine is interested in these five “because she believes one of them might be the reincarnation of an incredibly powerful individual, who prophecies say will either save humanity or destroy it,” Amazon said in a statement.

 

[The Invested Beard]

pleasegetthisrightpleasegetthisrightpleasegetthisright

[+Ark1002]

YES

[Trizee]

It sounds like the main character will be moiraine. I hope that doesn't mean they'll be changing too much.

[Jofwu]

9 hours ago, Trizee said:

It sounds like the main character will be moiraine. I hope that doesn't mean they'll be changing too much.

I think that's unlikely. I'm sure they'll have to change a lot in order to adapt the books (due to both length and differences in the mediums). I expect they'll put more emphasis on other characters besides Rand from the start (unlike the books).

But that would be a pretty weird change.

I've seen people assume that it was worded this way either because they want to get more attention from potential female viewers and/or because they plan to obscure who the Dragon is more than the books did.

[Wyndlerunner]

On 10/3/2018 at 9:10 AM, Jofwu said:

I think that's unlikely. I'm sure they'll have to change a lot in order to adapt the books (due to both length and differences in the mediums). I expect they'll put more emphasis on other characters besides Rand from the start (unlike the books).

But that would be a pretty weird change.

I've seen people assume that it was worded this way either because they want to get more attention from potential female viewers and/or because they plan to obscure who the Dragon is more than the books did.

I hope they do try to make it a bit more of a mystery. I knew Rand was the Dragon Reborn before I even picked up EoTW- and not from past knowledge mind you. If they do obscure it, I will be internally giggling like a madman as my friends attempt to figure out who the Dragon is.

For season 1, I feel like they should primarily focus on EoTW, but if they consolidate a bit, I could see them fitting TGH into season 1 as well. How would you guys split the seasons? I'm quite curious.

[Jofwu]

17 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I hope they do try to make it a bit more of a mystery. I knew Rand was the Dragon Reborn before I even picked up EoTW- and not from past knowledge mind you. If they do obscure it, I will be internally giggling like a madman as my friends attempt to figure out who the Dragon is.

I think I figured it out somewhere in the middle. Or I guess it seemed pretty obvious the whole time, but I was relatively young and I didn't know how the main character could possibly be someone as awful as the Dragon was supposed to be? 

I definitely think the show would do well to make it more of a mystery until they reach the Eye.

17 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

For season 1, I feel like they should primarily focus on EoTW, but if they consolidate a bit, I could see them fitting TGH into season 1 as well. How would you guys split the seasons? I'm quite curious.

Packing the first two books into one season sounds like far too much would need to be cut and reworked, especially given how much groundwork you need to lay. Might be able to combine books 2 and 3 though.

Game of Thrones got 8 seasons and this is based on far more content, so I'm going to assume we're working with 10 seasons. You could probably make 9 work well enough. Just 8 would be hard. Plot needs lots of re-shuffling mid-series so the book correlations at that point become more fuzzy. I lost steam around seasons 7/8/9. Some of what I said might need to be spread out more or generally reworked.

Season 1 = Eye of the World
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 2 = Great Hunt
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 3 = Dragon Reborn
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 4 = Shadow Rising + Fires of Heaven
Resolve time in the Waste sooner and get them back to the west. Spread out Two Rivers conflict over the season. Tower splits and the rebels form. Girls do their thing in Tanchico faster and reach Salidar.

Season 5 = Lord of Chaos + Crown of Swords
Rand lays plans against Sammael and takes care of business, less time-wasting with Min. LoC finale as some mid-season spice. Egwene and Mat go to Salidar. Bowl of Winds plot commences.

Season 6 = Path of Daggers + Winter's Heart + Crossroads of Twilight
Egwene gets the rebels moving to Tar Valon and is captured. Bowl of Winds resolves early. Elayne starts doing Andor stuff. Mat recovers and leaves with Tuon. Nynaeve and Rand fix saidin in the finale. Perrin sent for Masema, Faile captured.

Season 7 = leftovers from previous + Knife of Dreams
Mat and Tuon travel and reach the Band. Rand recovers, loses his hand, and starts getting dark. Perrin saves Faile in the finale. Egwene in the White Tower. Elayne becomes queen and deals with Black Ajah.

Season 8 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Darth Rand, with Veins of Gold as the finale. Egwene becomes Amyrlin. Mat travels, Tuon leaves at some point. Perrin travels?

Season 9 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Jesus Rand starts setting things up for the Last Battle. Mat does things in Caemlyn and rescues Moiraine in the finale. Perrin clashes with White Cloaks and becomes super-wolf. Egwene? Elayne?

Season 10 = Memory of Light
This is pretty straightforward.

[Wyndlerunner]

6 hours ago, Jofwu said:

I think I figured it out somewhere in the middle. Or I guess it seemed pretty obvious the whole time, but I was relatively young and I didn't know how the main character could possibly be someone as awful as the Dragon was supposed to be? 

I definitely think the show would do well to make it more of a mystery until they reach the Eye.

Packing the first two books into one season sounds like far too much would need to be cut and reworked, especially given how much groundwork you need to lay. Might be able to combine books 2 and 3 though.

Game of Thrones got 8 seasons and this is based on far more content, so I'm going to assume we're working with 10 seasons. You could probably make 9 work well enough. Just 8 would be hard. Plot needs lots of re-shuffling mid-series so the book correlations at that point become more fuzzy. I lost steam around seasons 7/8/9. Some of what I said might need to be spread out more or generally reworked.

Season 1 = Eye of the World
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 2 = Great Hunt
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 3 = Dragon Reborn
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 4 = Shadow Rising + Fires of Heaven
Resolve time in the Waste sooner and get them back to the west. Spread out Two Rivers conflict over the season. Tower splits and the rebels form. Girls do their thing in Tanchico faster and reach Salidar.

Season 5 = Lord of Chaos + Crown of Swords
Rand lays plans against Sammael and takes care of business, less time-wasting with Min. LoC finale as some mid-season spice. Egwene and Mat go to Salidar. Bowl of Winds plot commences.

Season 6 = Path of Daggers + Winter's Heart + Crossroads of Twilight
Egwene gets the rebels moving to Tar Valon and is captured. Bowl of Winds resolves early. Elayne starts doing Andor stuff. Mat recovers and leaves with Tuon. Nynaeve and Rand fix saidin in the finale. Perrin sent for Masema, Faile captured.

Season 7 = leftovers from previous + Knife of Dreams
Mat and Tuon travel and reach the Band. Rand recovers, loses his hand, and starts getting dark. Perrin saves Faile in the finale. Egwene in the White Tower. Elayne becomes queen and deals with Black Ajah.

Season 8 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Darth Rand, with Veins of Gold as the finale. Egwene becomes Amyrlin. Mat travels, Tuon leaves at some point. Perrin travels?

Season 9 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Jesus Rand starts setting things up for the Last Battle. Mat does things in Caemlyn and rescues Moiraine in the finale. Perrin clashes with White Cloaks and becomes super-wolf. Egwene? Elayne?

Season 10 = Memory of Light
This is pretty straightforward.

Yeah, it would have been a stretch to combine 1-2. I do like the way you layed this out- WoT has tons of Finale worthy moments. 

[Pagliacci]

Guess I should get around to reading the Wheel of Time then.

So then Amazon is developing WoT AND LotR shows? Seems a little risky.

[Jofwu]

On 10/22/2018 at 1:59 AM, Pagliacci said:

Guess I should get around to reading the Wheel of Time then.

So then Amazon is developing WoT AND LotR shows? Seems a little risky.

I figure they're looking at the LotR movies and GoT and speculating that there's actually a respectable market for quality fantasy movies/television. So they're taking a gamble and diving in completely.

I imagine LotR is meant to be a solid place to start. If it fails they'll surely call this whole idea a failure and scrap future plans. But if it's successful, I guess they want to have something ready so that they can expand and take over the market further. So that's what WoT is for.

Just my speculation.

[zmunkz]

On 10/11/2018 at 1:32 PM, Jofwu said:

Season 1 = Eye of the World
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 2 = Great Hunt
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 3 = Dragon Reborn
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 4 = Shadow Rising + Fires of Heaven
Resolve time in the Waste sooner and get them back to the west. Spread out Two Rivers conflict over the season. Tower splits and the rebels form. Girls do their thing in Tanchico faster and reach Salidar.

Season 5 = Lord of Chaos + Crown of Swords
Rand lays plans against Sammael and takes care of business, less time-wasting with Min. LoC finale as some mid-season spice. Egwene and Mat go to Salidar. Bowl of Winds plot commences.

Season 6 = Path of Daggers + Winter's Heart + Crossroads of Twilight
Egwene gets the rebels moving to Tar Valon and is captured. Bowl of Winds resolves early. Elayne starts doing Andor stuff. Mat recovers and leaves with Tuon. Nynaeve and Rand fix saidin in the finale. Perrin sent for Masema, Faile captured.

Season 7 = leftovers from previous + Knife of Dreams
Mat and Tuon travel and reach the Band. Rand recovers, loses his hand, and starts getting dark. Perrin saves Faile in the finale. Egwene in the White Tower. Elayne becomes queen and deals with Black Ajah.

Season 8 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Darth Rand, with Veins of Gold as the finale. Egwene becomes Amyrlin. Mat travels, Tuon leaves at some point. Perrin travels?

Season 9 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Jesus Rand starts setting things up for the Last Battle. Mat does things in Caemlyn and rescues Moiraine in the finale. Perrin clashes with White Cloaks and becomes super-wolf. Egwene? Elayne?

Season 10 = Memory of Light
This is pretty straightforward.

I like this.

I think season 1-5, and 10, as outlined, work perfectly. 6-9, though, I think will need more adaptation for television. I doubt they'll plan for 10 seasons, but who knows. We know the series will need to cut things (all do), and if I were so charged... I would remove the entire Bowl of the Winds sequence and the Atha'an Miere. The story arcs can be handled without either of those added layers of complexity/worldbuilding IMO. If they need to tighten it even more, I fear Perrin Aybara and his wolf dream would go next. His arc stays fairly separated from the major strokes, and the way in which it ties back in at the end could be handled by someone else, saving a lot of character development and detour (I hope they come up with a better solution than that, though). I also wouldn't be surprised if the Forsaken get consolidated into a chosen (hehe) few representing the bunch. I think the overall plot only demands Lanfear, Asmodean, and then one or two others consolidated from the lot. The black tower is a tricky one. It remains too-much in the background for too long in the books, and that won't convert well to TV... and yet, you definitely can't cut that out. They'll need to do something clever there.

I could see this go very wrong if the people making these decisions aren't very familiar with the source material, or are otherwise not capable of stitching up the holes they'll have to create while whittling the story into a screenplay.

Anyone know if Brandon Sanderson is to be involved?

[Jofwu]

19 hours ago, zmunkz said:

Anyone know if Brandon Sanderson is to be involved?

He's mentioned speaking with the showrunner two or three times, but I really don't get the sense he will ever be asked to be heavily involved--much less than he would want to. Just my opinion.

I definitely agree 6-9 on my list is the roughest part. I've seen a lot of people talk about cutting Bowl of Winds, and have even argued in favor of doing that myself. But now I'm not so sure. It plays into the books so deeply that I think cutting it would require a lot of significant changes. At the very least you have to find a way for Nynaeve/Elayne to "grow up" more between becoming Aes Sedai and everything that happens after the Bowl plot. Mat needs a LOT filled in. And the whole climate change issue is one of the key ways that you know the Last Battle is coming, in the middle books. Oh! And the Kin are a huge part of the finale.

So it would take a lot of structural changes to cut that out. Meanwhile, the only major reason it isn't liked (in my opinion) is that it takes way too long to resolve. It starts in one book, they spend another whole book bumbling around, and then it resolves in a third book. The solution, as I see it, isn't to cut the plot. They just need to resolve it in one season (my outline gave it 1.5) and keep it more focused.

You're right that they WILL have to cut things though. That's fine. Some of it will be sad to see go, but that's just how it needs to be for TV. Will definitely take creativity.

[zmunkz]

The character growth issue is a good one. Perhaps consolidating the events would work rather than cutting it out. I could imagine including the bowl of the winds, but still leaving out the Atha'an. Perhaps the Kin could fill their place (though that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny in quite the same way). Definitely need the Kin in there... someone is going to have a very tough job of this.

[WhiteLeeopard]

On 11/10/2018 at 7:32 PM, Jofwu said:

I think I figured it out somewhere in the middle. Or I guess it seemed pretty obvious the whole time, but I was relatively young and I didn't know how the main character could possibly be someone as awful as the Dragon was supposed to be? 

I definitely think the show would do well to make it more of a mystery until they reach the Eye.

Packing the first two books into one season sounds like far too much would need to be cut and reworked, especially given how much groundwork you need to lay. Might be able to combine books 2 and 3 though.

Game of Thrones got 8 seasons and this is based on far more content, so I'm going to assume we're working with 10 seasons. You could probably make 9 work well enough. Just 8 would be hard. Plot needs lots of re-shuffling mid-series so the book correlations at that point become more fuzzy. I lost steam around seasons 7/8/9. Some of what I said might need to be spread out more or generally reworked.

Season 1 = Eye of the World
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 2 = Great Hunt
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 3 = Dragon Reborn
This is pretty straightforward.

Season 4 = Shadow Rising + Fires of Heaven
Resolve time in the Waste sooner and get them back to the west. Spread out Two Rivers conflict over the season. Tower splits and the rebels form. Girls do their thing in Tanchico faster and reach Salidar.

Season 5 = Lord of Chaos + Crown of Swords
Rand lays plans against Sammael and takes care of business, less time-wasting with Min. LoC finale as some mid-season spice. Egwene and Mat go to Salidar. Bowl of Winds plot commences.

Season 6 = Path of Daggers + Winter's Heart + Crossroads of Twilight
Egwene gets the rebels moving to Tar Valon and is captured. Bowl of Winds resolves early. Elayne starts doing Andor stuff. Mat recovers and leaves with Tuon. Nynaeve and Rand fix saidin in the finale. Perrin sent for Masema, Faile captured.

Season 7 = leftovers from previous + Knife of Dreams
Mat and Tuon travel and reach the Band. Rand recovers, loses his hand, and starts getting dark. Perrin saves Faile in the finale. Egwene in the White Tower. Elayne becomes queen and deals with Black Ajah.

Season 8 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Darth Rand, with Veins of Gold as the finale. Egwene becomes Amyrlin. Mat travels, Tuon leaves at some point. Perrin travels?

Season 9 = Gathering Storms / Towers of Midnight
Jesus Rand starts setting things up for the Last Battle. Mat does things in Caemlyn and rescues Moiraine in the finale. Perrin clashes with White Cloaks and becomes super-wolf. Egwene? Elayne?

Season 10 = Memory of Light
This is pretty straightforward.

I agree up to 3, except that I would introduce Tuon in Season 2 and keep the Seanchan on permanently, even if they just have a couple of scenes per season when they are not too evident in the books.

Merge Seasons 6 and 7 and Seasons 8 and 9.

The reason for introducing Tuon early is that the Seanchan become too huge a part to ignore for as long as they are ignored in the books. After all, in tv you need to know who are the characters and who to root for from quite early on, when people are added randomly later on the audience loses interest. That Tuon is one of the girlfriends of the three boys just makes her early appeareance more important. They could add some more completely new material of the Seanchan too, as that could allow the audience to empathize with them a bit more than how they appear on the books. The same goes for the Black Tower, too important to cut off, yet too much in the background in the books, maybe make a whole new plot for it with some hints from parts of the books which are cut off.

Cut off a ton of Aes Sedai, Wise Ones and so on, partly because there is no real point in having so many, and yes, due to budget too .I myself lost interest in the mid books partly due to the million Aes Sedai, Wise Ones, Aiel and whatnot introduced out of the blue when we already had plenty of secondary and tertiary characters around to fill in the gaps. 

While some fans might hate the idea of not adhering completely to the books, I maintain that tv is not like reading. When reading we have a lot more information, and we can let our minds fill in for a lot that is not said. In tv its just watching and assuming that anything not onscreen did not happen. 

I wil take the approach of hope for the best, plan for the worst. 

Since lets be honest...WoT is HUGE, just handing the books to the person in charge of the scripts to read would raise some eyebrows as I, who am a fast reader still took a month to read them all. And you need two readings at least to even become aware of half of the prophecies, clues and mysteries. Then there is the decision on what to cut and what to keep. And so on ^^. 

[zmunkz]

19 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

 I would introduce Tuon in Season 2 and keep the Seanchan on permanently

I strongly agree with this, and your reasoning for it.

[Jaywalk]

On 10/31/2018 at 1:36 PM, WhiteLeeopard said:

million Aes Sedai

The scary thing is I actually remember a lot of them.

[king of nowhere]

any idea how long the production may take? none of the articles i saw mentioned dates or deadlines

[zmunkz]

I think from a greenlight to an airing can be several years, but I am not sure.

[Unstoppable Force]

We will be lucky to get 6 seasons of this show, they will cut out a bunch of the little stuff.  I can seem them cutting out Seanchan and the Sea Folk and shortening the Aiel experience.  

Have to think like a TV exec, what translates to the screen and what is necessary for telling the story.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

You know, a lot of the consolidation of this series can come just from the fact that TV is a visual medium, you can have Perrin give his little speech about how his current problem is like trying to work a blacksmith puzzle apart once and then for future iterations just have him fiddling with the blacksmith puzzle, and you can show Nyneave tugging on her braid. Those two conversions of words to visual explanation alone would probably cut the wheel of time page count down by about 300 pages.

Similar visual streamlining can occur, and I think you can easily cut out So. Harbor, almost all of the Shaido bits (especially the rescue of Faile) and significantly streamline the rebel white tower plot. This is one of the greatest series of all times, to be sure, but there are some incredibly loose threads that can be judiciously snipped without any major alteration to the main weave of the story. I think the Queen Elayne sub-plot in Andor can be significantly trimmed as well, and for god's sake can we cut the Gaylen Lukas traveling sideshow and menagerie bits? Please, please, please!

I really like your rough outline @Jofwu, but I think realistically if they are going to do this series right, they should probably aim for 6 seasons, with the Eye of the World as the first season (shador logoth as the mid season cliffhanger), then continue through The Great Hunt until Egewene is captured by the Seanchan and Leashed. And I would introduce the Seanchan by roundabout means throughout the first season, and maybe just show them once before the season ending episode (3rd to last episode, maybe right after the battle with Aginor and Bathamael show the scene where Dain Barnhold dies in Falme).

I don't have time to divide the rest of it up right now, and WOT books are not as rigorously structured as Sanderson books, but I think with 14 total books, the seasons should really be anywhere from 1.5 books per season to 3 books per season. And with a realistic season count of 6 seasons, the likelihood that we'll get a complete series is higher (the inertia of a big project where most of the sunk cost would be paid for up front is more likely to hold through 6 rather than through 10 seasons).

Honestly, I just hope they get a very talented screenwriter and showrunner that understand what makes this series so compelling, the settings are amazing, the characters are great, and the Chosen and the extended network of Dark Friends are probably the best group of antagonists in any book series. I am really excited to see what they do with this.

Edited January 3, 2019 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine
uhm, tagged pagerunner when I meant to tag jofwu, doh!

[zmunkz]

Brandon Sanderson posted his 2018 year-in-review, and it includes several interesting tidbits about the state of several potential tv / movie deals with his properties (including Mistborn... possible movie series! And Stormlight... possible tv series!). He then gives out some interesting nuggets about WoT:

https://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2018/

 

Quote

 

Bonus Mention: The Wheel of Time

As The Wheel of Time does not belong to me, I like to be careful about what I do and say with it. I don’t want to overstep my bounds. But for those who haven’t been paying attention, this series has progressed into a full-blown green light at Amazon Studios—with actual episodes being written and filming soon starting.

 

I don’t know what role, if any, I’ll have in this. Like I said, I like to be respectful of Team Jordan. It’s not my place to try to muscle in and pretend I’m in charge. At the same time, I do think I could offer something to the production, and the showrunner (who is quite sharp) has reached out to me multiple times for conversations about the adaptation. I’m impressed with everything I see, and hope to at the very least be able to pop over to the set when filming happens and grab some photos for you all.

 

For most of my own properties, I’d say to not hold your breath. I think they’ll happen eventually, but you shouldn’t start to get hyped up until Step Five happens for something. Well, we’re past Step Five with the Wheel of Time, and you can officially begin to feel hyped. It’s actually happening, and it looks great so far.

 

 

Well, I am hyped!

[Wander89]

8 hours ago, zmunkz said:

Brandon Sanderson posted his 2018 year-in-review, and it includes several interesting tidbits about the state of several potential tv / movie deals with his properties (including Mistborn... possible movie series! And Stormlight... possible tv series!). He then gives out some interesting nuggets about WoT:

https://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2018/

 

 

Well, I am hyped!

It's a given that, in some form, this will be dramatized to television however whether or not they will do it justice; we will just need to wait and see. I imagine they might be awaiting the endgame before they try and push this further. Potentially even waiting to see how Lord of the Rings, Magician, Wheel of Time and so on perform.

[Wyndlerunner]

Well, given some of Rafe's WoT Wednesday tweets, I think it might be judicious to assume that books 1-2 will be consolidated as season 1. 

I can honestly see the reasons behind doing it as well: If worst comes to worst, and the show is not renewed for future seasons (Light I hope that doesn't happen), I just don't see EotW working as a complete story, whereas EotW combined with TGH provides a more solid conclusion, that could be left as the end of the show, without it feeling unfinished.

[king of nowhere]

what is wot wednesday?

i googled it and it gives so many results, but they are all people commenting on wot wednesdays. can't find out the actual thing

[Wyndlerunner]

12 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

what is wot wednesday?

i googled it and it gives so many results, but they are all people commenting on wot wednesdays. can't find out the actual thing

Go to Rafe Judkin's twitter account, and just scroll through and look at posts marked #wotwednseday. 

The tweets that I'm particularly referencing are pictures of the scripts. The script for episode 4: The Dragon Reborn, is backlit by candles, allowing us to see episode 6's title through the paper and it is "The Flame of Tar Valon"