14 seasons?

[Elder_Haman]

I've thought about this quite a bit, actually. I think they'll break the series down (roughly) this way:

 

Season 1 = Book 1

The season ends with Fain escaping with the Horn and Siuan's unlikely support of Rand.

 

Season 2 = Book 2

The season ends with the epic battle between the Seanchan and the Heroes of the Horn and Rand's fight in the sky.

 

Season 3 = Books 3 & 4

Rand takes the Stone in the middle of the season and proclaims himself. The season ends with Rand returning from Rhuidean and Perrin leading the battle of the Two Rivers.

 

Season 4 = Books 5 & 6

The season begins with Rand's battle with Couladin and ends at Dumai's Wells.

 

Season 5 = Books 7-9

The season starts at Dumai's Wells* but is focused more on Mat, Nynaeve and Elayne and ends with the Seanchan attack on Ebou Dar. Cliffhanger ending where Faile gets captured and we don't know whether Mat survived.

* this is going to be a turning point where Rand becomes an antagonist as he loses his sanity following Dumai's Wells. In my vision, the show starts setting up Rand as a potential villain.

 

Season 6 = Books 10 & 11

Elayne takes the throne; Perrin rescues Faile; Mat marries Tuon. The season ends with the meeting between Rand and Tuon and with Egwene being captured.

 

Seasons 7 & 8 = Books 12-14

This could be broken over two seasons or done in one, depending on the popularity and profitability of the show. 

 

I think the show will try to stick to the major plot points and the major character arcs. But because Jordan's tends to write a ton of internal monologue, I suspect that there won't be too many scenes that are lifted directly from the book.

 

Hopefully the writers focus on creating scenes and dialogue that move the plot forward, but focus primarily on developing the characters and the relationships between them.

 

[mistborn82]

@Elder_HamanI like your predictions but one note, you forget to mention the Cleansing.

[Elder_Haman]

I did, didn't I?

I think it would fall toward the end of season 5 or beginning of season 6. 

[mistborn82]

Another thing I think why the time will have to be longer than three years is that the story timeline is all screwed up and unless I'm looking at someone's spreadsheet, I can't tell you anymore than after the end of book 6, it's screwed up. My guess is the cleansing is better to end the season or is used as a cliffhanger split in the middle.

[Thrasymachus]

I reckon we're gonna have to take this series about two seasons at a time.  It really depends on how popular it gets.  If the first two seasons are knockout hits, and that popularity can be sustained through the fourth season, we may end up with as many as 10 or 12 seasons.  If the first season is lackluster, we'll still definitely get a second, but if the second season doesn't see improvement, it probably ends there.  If popularity is great for the first two seasons, but drops off in the third and/or fourth, we may just get five or six in total, six if it maintains or improves slightly in the fifth season.

 

The trouble is that one can reasonably see a closure point at the end of the second season, if they make it to the fall of the Stone, which it looks like they're on pace to do.  After that, there's not really any good places to stop, and only a few ways to accelerate the story, all of which would involve cutting out some pretty major parts.

 

The other problem is that if this series does really well, some of these younger actors are gonna be eyeing other projects, and may decide to bail if they get a big movie role or a different series project that interests them (and pays them) more.  Recasts or replacement characters can kill or seriously hurt even a successful series.

[more rain]

Logistically, this is not the kind of show that you can do 10 or more seasons for. We can hope for 7, I think that is about the max they are going to be able to pull off and as it stands it is going to take well over a decade for them to make that many.

 

We also don't really know Amazon's philosophy/approach when it comes to their show longevities. Netflix seems to cancel a lot of shows after 2-3 seasons because they are all about increasing new subscriptions. Prime has only been around for about 13 years and doesn't really seem like they've tried too much to have any long-running shows yet, it seems like a lot of it has been limited series or stuff that was planned to last for only a few seasons, anyways. The Man in the High Castle was one of their most popular shows and they ended that at four seasons. 

 

Another one of their most popular shows, Bosch is getting 7 total seasons but it is also a show that is much cheaper (about $2.5 million per episode) and quicker (it's averaged a season a year since 2014) to produce than a show like Wheel of Time, which is starting off at roughly $10 million per episode and was going to take over a year and half just to make the season even before the pandemic hit. While the production time should go down a bit as the world gets more control over covid-19, the budget is only going to go up with inflation, contract re-negotiations, increasingly long character/cast list, etc. And, realistically, they just aren't going to be able to keep everyone tied into making this thing for much more than a decade. I'd about guarantee Rafe has an outline/plan to try to cover the series in 7-8 seasons. And we will be really fortunate if the series has enough wide appeal and sustainable popularity to get us those 7-8 seasons.

[Harldin]

7 hours ago, more rain said:

Logistically, this is not the kind of show that you can do 10 or more seasons for. We can hope for 7, I think that is about the max they are going to be able to pull off and as it stands it is going to take well over a decade for them to make that many.

 

We also don't really know Amazon's philosophy/approach when it comes to their show longevities. Netflix seems to cancel a lot of shows after 2-3 seasons because they are all about increasing new subscriptions. Prime has only been around for about 13 years and doesn't really seem like they've tried too much to have any long-running shows yet, it seems like a lot of it has been limited series or stuff that was planned to last for only a few seasons, anyways. The Man in the High Castle was one of their most popular shows and they ended that at four seasons. 

 

Another one of their most popular shows, Bosch is getting 7 total seasons but it is also a show that is much cheaper (about $2.5 million per episode) and quicker (it's averaged a season a year since 2014) to produce than a show like Wheel of Time, which is starting off at roughly $10 million per episode and was going to take over a year and half just to make the season even before the pandemic hit. While the production time should go down a bit as the world gets more control over covid-19, the budget is only going to go up with inflation, contract re-negotiations, increasingly long character/cast list, etc. And, realistically, they just aren't going to be able to keep everyone tied into making this thing for much more than a decade. I'd about guarantee Rafe has an outline/plan to try to cover the series in 7-8 seasons. And we will be really fortunate if the series has enough wide appeal and sustainable popularity to get us those 7-8 seasons.

Don’t forget the Middle Earth 2nd Age(LOTR) series which they have basically contracted for a 5 season, $750m run. 
I am very optimistic about the wide appeal of the WOT, people love magic and this show is going to be built on it, full of great characters, some Horror themes, some epic battles, whats not to love.
GOT had no trouble holding on to there main cast for 8 seasons and they still had time to do some other projects, Maisie Williams doing several Dr Who episodes is a good example. 

Edited July 25, 2020 by Harldin
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[mistborn82]

Just the visual representation alone will probably cut out 5-7 books.

[Sammuel]

I'm wondering how many important settings are going to be in Season one. It's probably going to be hella inconvenient if they they have a new setting per episode. If I think back on GoT season 1 mostly had 4 or 5 major settings. eye of the world, because it's a journey, should have"

 

The Two Rivers

Baerlon = can be cut if they put Min some in Caemlyn, but need to include her,

Shaddar Logoth

The inns Rand and Mat go to, although it could be the same building and they shoot a different corner each time.

Caemlyn

Shinar

The blight

 

If they continue into the great hunt, then it will show Tar Valon and probably Cairhien. What can be cut to reduce budget cost, so that they can deal with them later?

 

[Thrasymachus]

Most of the stuff you list can be the same set, just re-dressed.  Baerlon, Caemlyn, Shadar Logoth, Fal Dara, Tar Valon and Falme can all have the same set, with some set pieces that get moved around and re-dressed, and then populated with cast extras differently.

[Elder_Haman]

48 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

Most of the stuff you list can be the same set, just re-dressed.  Baerlon, Caemlyn, Shadar Logoth, Fal Dara, Tar Valon and Falme can all have the same set, with some set pieces that get moved around and re-dressed, and then populated with cast extras differently.

 

Probably can't get away with all of those being the same set. The architecture and cultural markers are too different.

[Thrasymachus]

Redressing stuff can do a lot to change the architectural character of a building, and especially of a facade.  Though I agree, they probably won't be all the same set.  But there may well be some set pieces and building facades that show up in all those settings.

[Ywingscum]

I would be down for 14 seasons! ?

[Dovie'andi se tovya sagain]

I doubt it'll run for 14 seasons. I think if it's 8 episodes per season at 60 minutes duration or less per episode and presuming the show makes it through to the end of the story then I think we''ll get 7-9 seasons to portray the content of 15 books worth of story. I think New Spring prequel content will make it since it adds so much to the overall story.

[Guest The Commander]

With the exception of 'the slog', one book per season really wouldn't do TWoT enough justice, let alone two.
Removing the internal monologues, braid-pulling, et cetera would probably give us a whole book of leeway, like mentioned above, but the result is near the same.
To really do this justice, an approach like how Marvel did the MCU would possibly work, albeit including more 'bingeable' media.

[Thrasymachus]

Gotta remember there's a whole lot of scene-setting and elaborate descriptions of things like clothing and hairstyles and expressions.  Things that can take pages of the books that can be depicted in literal seconds, or less, of screen-time.  

 

In any event, I don't believe they have the scripts for anything past Season 2 yet, and at best Season 2 will finish off the first three books, with some brand new scenes involving Logain and some scenes from New Spring as well, apparently.  After that, if they continue, they're gonna need to clean up the diverging timelines quite a bit, at the very least.  Having, at any one time, at least three major plotlines running is not too bad, but when one of those plotlines starts running well ahead of the others, things are gonna get confusing.  

[Elder_Haman]

1 hour ago, Thrasymachus said:

... After that, if they continue, they're gonna need to clean up the diverging timelines quite a bit, at the very least.  Having, at any one time, at least three major plotlines running is not too bad, but when one of those plotlines starts running well ahead of the others, things are gonna get confusing.  

 

This is very true. 

Although the "slog" books I think are fairly easily condensed into a single season with a timeline that actually makes sense.

[mistborn82]

I never paid attention to the timeline but I think some of the time and other issues with Perrin at least will be solved by sprinkling his development throughout his storyline. Rand, Mat and Elayne I'm not sure you can do that though.

[Taishar Hawaii]

On 7/27/2020 at 1:13 PM, Elder_Haman said:

 

Probably can't get away with all of those being the same set. The architecture and cultural markers are too different.

Agreed.  The cities are like characters in the book, each distinct in their own ways.  

[ChosenDuck]

One book, crossroads of Twilight, if I recall correctly, has all of the central characters in the same position at the end as they are at the beginning.

 

They could probably mix that into the season before and after if they add a couple of episodes.

[JenniferL]

Since they’ve confirmed that it definitely won’t be 14 seasons, there’s no reason for this ancient thread anymore.