WHEEL OF TIME officially optioned for television

[Mexal]

 

Don't mistake a few vocal sour grapes on the internet with the majority of book fans.

 

Yea, my thoughts exactly. This forum isn't exactly representative of the wider world.

[williamjm]

On the basis that to many book fans GoT has turned into a shit sandwich after people had hopes and dreams of it being a gourmet feast, I think all WoT fans, should pray to all the gods and Shaitan than this thing never gets turned into a TV series.

 

The story itself has a fundamentally lower audience appeal outside of the fantasy fanbase, and even among the fantasy fanbase it's only the WoT fans who would have more than a passing interest.

 

What live action fantasy really works on TV? It's the stuff with blood, gore and sex, because that appeals to the "adults" in TV fandom. I can't see live action being viable for WoT. It could be turned into an animated series and be aimed at the Avatar Legend of Aang type fanbase. Mostly kids and teen, and genre fan adults, like most of us. But the budget and talent assigned to an animated production would be too low to use genuine talent to make it, so it would also be a disappointment.

I guess the upcoming [i]Shannara[/i] series might tell us something about the potential audience for a more 'traditional' Epic Fantasy adaptation.

 

I think the problem with an epic fantasy TV series is always likely to be the budget that you have to spend to have something that doesn't look cheap, which is probably why most non-GoT adaptations have either been miniseries (I thought [i]Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell[/i] was excellent but [i]Wheel of Time[/i] would be an order of magnitude more complex to do) or relatively low budget (the BBC's [i]Merlin[/i] got 5 seasons and good ratings in the UK but there were obvious limitations, I think every other week they had an action scene in the same ravine).

 

I give it about a 1% chance of being recognisable as WoT, aside from names and places, if it gets more than half way through.

 

I think not being able to recognise parts of the second half of WoT in the show might not be a bad thing, necessarily. I think I could cope without there being an accurate adaptation of the hundreds of pages spent on Faile's captivity in the Shaido camp.

[Richard Writhen]

Maybe they should adapt it into a manga if its 14 fawkin volumes...

[Werthead]

Maybe they should adapt it into a manga if its 14 fawkin volumes...

 

An anime? They already tried, a Japanese company was interested about 15 years ago but they only wanted to do Books 1-3 and rewrite the ending so it was the ending of the whole story. The author was unimpressed.

[Mladen]

As much as I would like to see "Wheel of Time" TV show, we all know how "Legend of the Seeker" ended. 

 

The thing is that sometimes people forget what sold ASOIAF. It wasn't that it was fantasy, it was the fact that it was something new. "Sopranos meets LOTR" - that was how HBO made people watch it. To base the entire thing on the fandom would be impossible and WoT just doesn't allow you that. WoT is the traditional fantasy series and it contains all that comes with that. Not to mention that it has 14 volumes, thousands of characters, countless plots. If anyone would do it, they would be going like knife through butter. 

 

Generally, I agree with Wert. This has a solid fanbase, but I wouldn't put my money on plausibility of this happening in some near future.

[Pliskin]

I have only read the first book and then half of book 2 before deciding to drop it, but I don't really understand why we're even talking about a TV show.

To me, there isn't much in WoT that warrants an entire season of TV. Just do a movie (if any). A movie is sufficient to adapt the first book. And it would cut the boring and useless parts of the book. An entire season would just be boring and uninteresting.

[Mladen]

I have only read the first book and then half of book 2 before deciding to drop it, but I don't really understand why we're even talking about a TV show.

To me, there isn't much in WoT that warrants an entire season of TV. Just do a movie (if any). A movie is sufficient to adapt the first book. And it would cut the boring and useless parts of the book. An entire season would just be boring and uninteresting.

 

Well, WpT is one of the best selling franchises at the world, surpassed solely (if I am not mistaken) by Tolkien and Rowling. Furthermore, it has been one of the most famous and known series in the genre, the one that reinvigorated the entire thing. It is rather normal for people to discuss about adaptation, regardless whether it is on TV or movie. After all, if Twilight, Narnia and Outlander got adaptations, WoT most definitely deserves it.

[Pliskin]

I wasn't questioning the idea of an adaptation, but that of a TV show.

The great majority of popular Fantasy book series (frankly, the Sword of Truth and ASoIaF were very negligible exceptions) had a movie adaptation, not a TV one. Often and almost always bad, but still.

[williamjm]

I wasn't questioning the idea of an adaptation, but that of a TV show.

The great majority of popular Fantasy book series (frankly, the Sword of Truth and ASoIaF were very negligible exceptions) had a movie adaptation, not a TV one. Often and almost always bad, but still.

There might be more film adaptations but there are other TV adaptations of fantasy books, [i]Narnia[/i], [i]Earthsea[/i], [i]Discworld[/i], [i]Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell[/i], [i]The Dresden Files[/i] and [i]Gormenghast[/i] have all had TV adaptations (with varying degrees of success).

 

There are also at least three being made at the moment in the form of [i]Shannara[/i], [i]The Magicians[/i] and [i]American Gods[/i].

[Pliskin]

Well, I just learned that Narnia had a TV show. I didn't know that.

[williamjm]

Well, I just learned that Narnia had a TV show. I didn't know that.

I think it was a BBC show. I remember watching it as a child, although I can't remember much about it now. I suspect it wouldn't stand up well to a rewatch.

[Richard Writhen]

Well I'm not saying the same company as before. If they couldn't interest the author then that ends that.

 

 

 

 

I'm saying maybe some other company could broach the subject...

[Which Tyler]

 
An anime? They already tried, a Japanese company was interested about 15 years ago but they only wanted to do Books 1-3 and rewrite the ending so it was the ending of the whole story. The author was unimpressed.

surely that's because doing 3 books and finishing there is a bad idea, not because anime is a bad idea.
IMO anime, or at least, highly stylised cartoon format, is by far the best way to translate this to a visual medium.

 

Live action won't cope with the ages, and the CGI costs that would be required for... everything, there'd be no real point.

You also need to be able to see the magic system IMO, and to CGI that onto a live action shot would have real difficulty in just looking ok. It would be possible, but you'd need a budget that dwarfs anything ever seen on TV, and you'd still have the issue of age.

 

Thinking about it - the very best way is probably to go the Zach Snyder route (sorry) used in 300 or Beowulf; and essentially use the live action as mo-cap for your animation; keep it looking obviously animated and fantastical. Budget would almost certainly be restrictive though.

 

 

Another problem with any translation to visual would be the over-arching story. TV needs cut-offs where they can cut it without ruining it if it fails. You could pretty much do book 1 as the first season; but then you're pretty much committed to doing the rest; at least as a semi-scripted road-map before you start. It's just too complex to write a single season at a time whilst getting out a season every year. (something I think GoT has suffered from)

[HexMachina]

I think it was a BBC show. I remember watching it as a child, although I can't remember much about it now. I suspect it wouldn't stand up well to a rewatch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zfm_qtMOz7E

Eta: also found this one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xXJaHs67xYs as a TV series

[sperry]

We can be as high-minded as we want, but GoT made it because it picked up the casual non-genre interested fan with boobs and graphic violence, on top of the already great story plus great writing/production of the tv show.

 

Boobs and violence would have to be artificially injected in WoT.

[polishgenius]

We can be as high-minded as we want, but GoT made it because it picked up the casual non-genre interested fan with boobs and graphic violence, on top of the already great story plus great writing/production of the tv show.

 

Boobs and violence would have to be artificially injected in WoT.

 

 

So why is LotR an unbelievably massive success? And indeed Harry Potter?

[Mexal]

So why is LotR an unbelievably massive success? And indeed Harry Potter?

 

Yea agreed. The idea that it was boobs that drove a large number of viewers to GOT is ridiculous and unproven. In fact, felt like the boob quota dropped after the first season or two yet the viewer count continued to rise.

[Corvinus85]

We can be as high-minded as we want, but GoT made it because it picked up the casual non-genre interested fan with boobs and graphic violence, on top of the already great story plus great writing/production of the tv show.

 

Boobs and violence would have to be artificially injected in WoT.

Artificially injected? Just because the author was less descriptive doesn't mean that it was absent. You were free to use your imagination for all those parts. There is way more nudity, violence, and gore in WoT than in ASoIaF.

[Werthead]

The thing is that sometimes people forget what sold ASOIAF. It wasn't that it was fantasy, it was the fact that it was something new. "Sopranos meets LOTR" - that was how HBO made people watch it. To base the entire thing on the fandom would be impossible and WoT just doesn't allow you that. WoT is the traditional fantasy series and it contains all that comes with that. Not to mention that it has 14 volumes, thousands of characters, countless plots. If anyone would do it, they would be going like knife through butter. 

 

Not entirely. WoT has several things going for it over others: the scientific and methodological approach to magic, the less brutal violence and sex (a Game of Thrones you can sit down with 12-year-olds to watch is certainly one marketing angle) and what I suspect could be a main selling point, the male/female dynamic. This would have to be handle different (i.e. better) than Jordan did, but it's certainly something you can pursue.

 

I wasn't questioning the idea of an adaptation, but that of a TV show.

 

Doing a movie - or even a 6 or 7 film series - would mean cutting 80-90% of the story, subplots and characters. Which some people might say is a good thing, but it would render the exercise of adapting the series completely pointless.

 

I'm saying maybe some other company could broach the subject...

 

They've had almost two decades to do so, and have not. Also, the current deal has cost millions of dollars, far more than the return of any animated film or series. If the rights have indeed reverted to the Jordan Estate, they might be tempted by a future animated deal. But at the moment it's not viable given the outlay on the current project.

 

Live action won't cope with the ages, and the CGI costs that would be required for... everything, there'd be no real point.

 

You also need to be able to see the magic system IMO, and to CGI that onto a live action shot would have real difficulty in just looking ok. It would be possible, but you'd need a budget that dwarfs anything ever seen on TV, and you'd still have the issue of age.

 

The Aes Sedai ageless look would probably have to go. There are actually very cheap ways of doing it - you could do a DNR on just the actress's faces and deliberately make it look "off" in the way some companies accidentally make it look off when using automatic DNR when updating old TV shows to HD - but you'd probably end up in the uncanny valley. It's a fairly minor plot point in the grand scheme of things and disposable.

 

The two biggest headaches are the use of the One Power and the near-absolute use of outdoor filming, without the recurring sets that GoT was able to rely on from Day 1. There are some creative solutions to the latter, but the former would be a challenge. Not an insurmountable one though. There's been a massive breakthrough in cost-effective-but-awesome-looking CG in the last 1-2 years that we've seen in GoT and we can see in the trailers for Shannara, and WoT could benefit from that as well.

 

Another problem with any translation to visual would be the over-arching story. TV needs cut-offs where they can cut it without ruining it if it fails. You could pretty much do book 1 as the first season; but then you're pretty much committed to doing the rest; at least as a semi-scripted road-map before you start. It's just too complex to write a single season at a time whilst getting out a season every year. (something I think GoT has suffered from)

 

You don't need cut-offs. GoT certainly doesn't have them, and very few other serialised shows do. WoT's primary benefit of course is the fact it's done, so the hedging-their-bets that the writers have occasionally done on GoT because they don't know if a character is important or not would not be necessary on a WoT show. You could map the whole thing about before shooting a single frame of footage.

 

Artificially injected? Just because the author was less descriptive doesn't mean that it was absent. You were free to use your imagination for all those parts. There is way more nudity, violence, and gore in WoT than in ASoIaF.

 

Things like the Aiel sweat tents and the Aes Sedai ceremonies. People tend to forget that people are standing around naked for very long periods of time through those sections. Violence and gore, sort of. Dumai's Wells is more of a charnel house than anything in ASoIaF so far (except maybe the sack of Astapor). People forget that in WoT people can actually explode through the use of the Power.

 

That said, it's not something that dwelt on too much, and can be toned down if required. Actually, the fact that WoT has an arguably lighter tone than ASoIaF makes the much more infrequent moments of sex and violence more of a surprise, which could either be an effect way of selling those moments or might just come across as a cheap shock tactic.

[Mladen]

 

Not entirely. WoT has several things going for it over others: the scientific and methodological approach to magic, the less brutal violence and sex (a Game of Thrones you can sit down with 12-year-olds to watch is certainly one marketing angle) and what I suspect could be a main selling point, the male/female dynamic. This would have to be handle different (i.e. better) than Jordan did, but it's certainly something you can pursue.

 

I agree that scientific approach and scholastic approach to magical powers in WoT is indeed the most interesting thing. The politics of White Tower can also been used nicely, as well as philosophy of Aiels, for example. The versatility of cultures can always be interesting and Jordan's world is colorful at least. I am not sure about male/female dynamics, since I always considered it the major flaw of the series. The entire Mars/Venus dichotomy should be passe by now.

 

I agree that there are things to pursue here, but expanding the audience is the main goal here. Can WoT do it? We have seen Legend of the Seeker failing to do so. Game of Thrones did it by evoking a memory of something that is not fantasy-related - Sopranos and in some way, Rome. Shannara, well, we will see how that will turn out to be.

 

Generally, the audience is there. I don't have the numbers, but I am inclined that the series surpassed 100 million copies (The 44 million sold copies is from 2008.) As someone who comes from different corner of the world, I have to say that pre-GoT, Jordan was surpassing Martin in sales and popularity around here. Actually, Jordan, with Rowling, Tolkien, Pratchett and Gaiman, and perhaps Erickson whose books are constantly being bought.

 

Lastly, I believe we would agree that some things would have to go. I mean, I once counted almost 300 NAMED Aes Sedai. And that is only White Tower... There are too many things and I suppose at some point someone will have to make some cuts. 

 

The Aes Sedai ageless look would probably have to go. There are actually very cheap ways of doing it - you could do a DNR on just the actress's faces and deliberately make it look "off" in the way some companies accidentally make it look off when using automatic DNR when updating old TV shows to HD - but you'd probably end up in the uncanny valley. It's a fairly minor plot point in the grand scheme of things and disposable.

 

 

This is something that me and my friends here in Serbia have debated for some time. How would you achieve the agelessness? For me, it would have to go out. Something like Sisters of Light/Dark in Legends of the Seeker. Hiring actress in their 30ies, 40ies, 50ies and just stating their age along the way.

 

 People forget that in WoT people can actually explode through the use of the Power.

 

 

LOL, true. I mean, it is not like there are no epic battles in WoT. Almost each book has some sort of epic battle. By the time you come to Tarmon Gaidon, you would have seen quite the number of battles - Eye of the World, Falme, Tear, Dumai Wells, fights with Seanchans, battle at Caemlyn, cleansing of saidin etc, etc, etc... I mean, those who love battles would find the adaptation a real treat.