As reported earlier today, Amazon Studios has greenlit the first season of a Wheel of Time TV show.  From The Hollywood Reporter:

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The long-gestating TV show based on Robert Jordan's epic The Wheel of Time novels is officially a go at Amazon.

 

The streamer confirmed on Tuesday that it had ordered the one-hour action fantasy to series, with Sony Pictures TV co-producing and Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), who adapted the books for TV, serving as showrunner.

 

Spanning 14 volumes, The Wheel of Time has sold more than 90 million copies internationally, making it the biggest-selling fantasy series since The Lord of the Rings (which, coincidentally, Amazon is also adapting for TV). 

Backstory in Brief

The story of getting the book series adapted for the screen has been long and tumultuous. A full history of the franchise's adaptation journey is beyond the scope of this article, but the short version is that the rights to the series were originally optioned by NBC in 2000, then held briefly by an independent group called Forsaken Films. In 2004 the option passed from Forsaken to Red Eagle Entertainment, who held the rights until they worked out a deal with Radar Pictures and Sony Pictures, who eventually made the deal with Amazon. During the Red Eagle years, multiple valiant efforts were made to adapt first book in the series, The Eye of the World, into a stand-along film, but those projects never took off. In order to prevent their option from expiring, Red Eagle infamously created the heavily-panned "Winter Dragon" short "pilot" that ultimately led to a lawsuit and counter lawsuit between themselves and Robert Jordan's estate.  The lawsuits were settled out of court. 

Rafe Judkins and current situation

In 2017, Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) was hired to be the lead writer and showrunner for the WoT TV show. He's since led a team of writers to begin developing scripts. Last month Rafe hosted  a Twitter Q&A where he talked, amongst other things, about the tone and focus that fans can expect to see. 

The Amazon deal is exciting because it comes in the wake of news that another big fantasy project, Conan the Barbarian, had been put on hold. This tells us that the studio has a lot of confidence in the WoT project, which seems to be ahead of schedule compared to the heavily-discussed Lord of the Rings prequel series that Amazon reportedly paid $250 million to acquire the rights to. 

With today's announcement, Amazon has approved the creation of a single season. We don't know how many episodes that will include, but given today's trends, it's likely to be anywhere from 8-13 episodes.

Rafe Judkins has indicated that this first season will focus primarily on the events found in The Eye of the World, but viewers should be prepared for anything. And while the specifics of the plot won't be revealed until the show airs, the clues we've had so far hint at larger roles for the primary female characters (Egwene, Nynaeve, and Moiraine) along with an emphasis on the positive feminist aspects  found in the books.  The WoT book series was first published in 1990, and at the time, Jordan received heavy praise for his forward-thinking portrayal of heroic women. Time and evolved thinking has softened those views somewhat, but it's clearly Rafe's plan to once more put Wheel of Time at the forefront of the discussion. Multiple news outlets emphasize this point.

From Variety:

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Headline: Amazon Orders Female-Driven Fantasy Series ‘The Wheel of Time’

 

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.

It's unlikely that Moiraine will be the primary main character in the TV show. Some fans have speculated that the show will be an adaptation of the WoT prequel novel,  New Spring, but we know that's not the case. If anything, it's more likely we'll see glimpses of the events from that book interwoven to help expand Moiraine's character. The focus of the series, both in the books and the TV show, will be centered on the Two Rivers characters. 

As always, as we learn more about the series, we'll lost more here. 

A new announcement from Amazon Studios list The Wheel of Time as one of the shows they’ve ordered for Amazon Prime.

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.

 

Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television are co-producing the series, which was announced by Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, at a show-and-tell in London on Tuesday. “The Wheel of Time” will premiere globally on Amazon Prime Video.

 

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.

An interesting spin on the story, which does feature strong, female characters.  You can read the whole article from Variety. 

Rafe Judkins, the showrunner for the potential Wheel of Time TV show, answered an assortment of fan questions on Twitter this morning. You can find the entire thread here. 

Overall Show Status

"In development." Amazon Studios is the network currently developing the show. The production studio is Sony Pictures Television, working with Radar Pictures. There has been no official announcement about the show being green-lit yet. This means that while a lot of people are working on developing ideas and screenplays, until a public announcement happens, we do not know if a pilot or full season have been ordered. During the twitter Q&A, Rafe was unable to answer any questions related to the project's overall status, or potential timeframe. 

Highlights from the Q&A

• The plan is to adapt the entire Wheel of Time TV series.
• Each episode is designed to be an hour long.
• Rafe Judkins: "I want [the tone of the show] to feel adult but accessible."
• The first season will largely focus on events from The Eye of the World.
• But do not expect a straight-forward and literal adaptation that strictly conforms to the way the books tell the story. Rafe Judkins: "... malleable by season and book."
• Rafe has a special place in his heart for Bela.
• Casting has not begun, but is expected to happen worldwide, under the supervision of a yet-to-be-hired casting director. 
• Efforts will be made to ensure a diverse cast is selected.
• Gender representation is important to the series, and to the producers.  Rafe Judkins: "I think that gender is such a key theme of the books, and discussing gender without a full representation of LGBTQ+ people would be a disservice to that discussion. Rest assured, their will be pillow friends out the wazoo."
• Rafe and his team are passionate fans, utilizing as much information about the series as possible fro every source, including all published books, the WoT Companion, fan sites, and Team Jordan directly. 
• Rafe Judkins: "We have freedom to do what we want, but what I want is to stay true to the books"
• Rafe Judkins: "I really want to stay true to the books in creating a world that feels way more diverse than what we're used to seeing in our fantasy tv shows"
• Interestingly, the "Rand and his 3 women plot" might change. 
• Logain may have an expanded, larger role in the TV show.
• So far, Nynaeve has been the most challenging character to write.
• Rafe and his team are generally trying to avoid merging characters.
• Rafe is especially excited about the opening chapters in the Weswood, the Aiel Waste plot line, and Dumai's Wells. 

We will keep you updated as progress on the show evolves. 

Be sure to follow Rafe's Twitter and Instagram accounts, and while you're at it, check out our twitter feed and Facebook page. 

At the beginning of the month, Rafe Judkins—showrunner for The Wheel of Time television series—began to give us hints on Twitter about his involvement and progress with script writing and other behind-the-scenes details.  This quickly morphed into #WoTWednesday (it had started out in July as #WoTMonday).

Each Wednesday, Judkins has been posting small snippets for us to drool over.  Here’s a quick recap of August’s posts:

August 8^th:

“So I thought for #WoTWednesday this week I’d post something that gives you a little insight into how I broke down the books (without giving away too much), so I decided to open to a random page in the EoTW (Brit edition!  My original was too beat up) and take a picture.”

The page opened to was 19 (of the British, Orbit edition) where Rand and Tam arrive in Emond’s Field and Rand dwells on the meaning of Bel Tine and the coming of spring.  Judkin’s inscriptions—as far as I can tell—read “Fun description” when Rand talks about the first lambs of spring, the festivities that will be held, the arrival of the first peddlers, and the possibility of fireworks.  Also, Judkins scrawled the words “Tale of Manetheran” when Rand details the history of Bran al’Vere’s inn—and the fact some of the walls are older than the whole village.

August 15^th:

For this post, Judkins switched to Instagram since he shared a more personal (and longer than Twitter allows) story about his connection to Wheel of Time and being exposed to other cultures.

“For #WoTWednesday this week, since I’m in Fiji where 30% of the population is Hindu (and the 10 dollar coin is actually a mandala of the Kalachakra or “Wheel of Time”) I thought I’d talk a little about the philosophy of the books and what I want to bring out in the series. One of my favorite things about the books is how they embrace eastern religions and philosophies and put them into an epic fantasy context in a way we haven’t yet seen in tv or film. I plan to lean heavily into the concept of reincarnation in the books and have spent a lot of time talking to people who believe in reincarnation to get a feel for how that affects not only your philosophy of the world, but also the every day way you live your life. I’d love to hear, too, about some of your favorite moments from the books that deal with reincarnation or being spun out again by the wheel of time (mine is Birgitte Silverbow’s return?). Obviously, yin and yang and balance and duality are important eastern philosophical concepts from the books that I want to bring out in series, but we will save discussions on that for a future trip to China ;)”

August 22^nd:

“For #wotwednesday this week, I’ll do something scandalous and give you an actual snippet from the first script of one of those iconic scenes that simply must exist.  Introducing THREE key characters ;)”

Judkins then attached an image of the script with some details before the character’s dialogue.

“EXT. THE WESTWOOD – DAY

We’re higher in the mountains, spring’s touch hasn’t reached here yet.  Trees are bare, patches of snow dot the ground.

An OLD CART filled with SMALL WOOD BARRELS and BALES OF WOOL makes its way through the wood, pulled by a shaggy BROWN MARE. TWO MEN walk on either side of her, father and son.

This is TAM AL’THOR, 50’s, an aging shepherd with the watchful eye of a warrior. Thick chest and broad face, there’s a masculine solidness to him, as though a flood could wash around him without uprooting his feet.”

And finally, from today, August 29^th:

“Hey!  Sorry (especially to non-US folks) for the lateness on this.   But this #WoTWednesday I thought I’d give another script grab — this time about casting.  Actual casting is a long way off, but this at least gives you an idea of how we are thinking about it in a general sense.”

Along with this text, Judkins attached a part of the script detailing the direction of some characteristics of the Randland residents, stating:

“[A QUICK NOTE: race in the world of Wheel of Time is much less defined than in our world.

As much as possible, our cast should look like America will in a few hundred years – a beautiful mix of white, brown, black and everything in between]”

There’s little we can glean off of these, other than a steadfast knowledge that our beloved series is in good hands.  To have a fan at the reigns relieves many of my anxieties about an on-screen adaptation.  And even though these are small morsels, it’s consistent and done so lovingly, that it rids me of all the other anxieties.  Yes, it will be a while before we have a tangible product.  But we know it’s in the works, and it’s getting there.  As Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”  Judkins is taking those first few steps and we will arrive home eventually.

Since the news of a potential Wheel of Time television series was released in April of 2016, right after JordonCon 8, we’ve all been waiting for news of the show’s progress.  Last year, again, around JordanCon 9, we learned the rights had landed with Sony Pictures, and that Rafe Judkins was the lead writer and executive producer of the project.  And earlier this year, in January, we had the first tweet from Judkins in relation to a possible Wheel of Time script.

Considering we’ve waited two years just for those snippets, it seems almost like overload when we’ve seen several tweets from Jadkins over the past two months teasing Wheel of Time fans with pictures of assumedly-complete scripts for the first two episodes.

At first, Jadkins began his tweets with #WheelofTimeMonday and shared a bit of his process that way.  However, this quickly morphed to #WoTWednesday (which does have a better ring to it).

In his latest tweet, sent out only a few days ago, Jadkins gave Mat fans something to look forward to:

“And I give you — the second and last #WheelofTimeMonday.  Because as everyone has so obviously pointed out — #WoTWednesday is 1000x better.  I warned you I’m bad at social media.  Also, Wheel of Time fans should rejoice because AK Shuman writes Mat like she was born to it.”

Though “bad at social media” we hope Jadkins will give us regular updates.  After so long with only tidbits to tide us over, I know the Wheel of Time community will love more news.

You can see Jadkin’s other tweets and commentary at Bleeding Cool, the Wertzone, the Daily Trolloc, and IGN.

Frederick "Ted" Field, an Executive Producer with Sony, may be making some announcements about the potential Wheel of Time television series in the near future.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Field's sudden luck with the successful Jumani: Welcome to the Jungle film late last year may help with developments for The Wheel of Time show.  They state that Field has several big announcements coming soon, and "[o]ne of those announcements will be a television series for Wheel of Time, a fantasy series based on the work of Robert Jordan that has been compared to Game of Thrones. This franchise has been the subject of much mystery and speculation. When FXX rushed the production of a pilot and aired it at the odd hour of 1:30 am, all sorts of discussion proceeded on message boards and in the news media on whether the gambit was an attempt by one production company to hold onto rights. That led to a slander lawsuit, which was later settled. Now, Field is prepared to announce a future for Wheel of Time."

Adam Whitehead laments that while Sony holds the rights, they haven't found a network to air the show, and Narg the Trolloc has an up-to-date list about who might be able to host the series once the planning stage is complete.

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Here's a quick recap of who's out, iffy and still in the running.
OUT

HBO (GoT Spin-offs)
Amazon (1 perhaps 2 Middle Earth shows)
Showtime (King Killer Chronicles)
SYFY (Have greenlit Outpost an original Fantasy series)

IFFY

Netflix (has "The Witcher" but due to its subscriber base being bigger than all the US cable companies combined, it would be silly to say they can't do two big Fantasy shows)

CBS Direct (CBS owns Showtime and sell it as an add on to their streaming service, so it's iffy that they'd also do their own big fantasy show)

STILL IN THE RUNNING

AMC (Has a strong partnership with Sony and other than being stingy on budgets for their shows, would be a good fit. With "The Walking Dead" ratings starting to decline they might be looking for the next big thing)

Apple TV (Ex Sony Pictures Television bosses are in charge and have a Billion in loose change to spend on ten or so shows, have announced six so far)

Disney (are launching a streaming service in 2019 and so far have four live-action series based on Disney properties in development: Star Wars, High School Musical, Monsters, Inc. and Marvel)

StarZ (they have "Outlander" and "Amercian Gods" but no straight up fantasy show...surely they don't want to be the only one of the big established channels not to have one)

Crackle is Sony's free SVOD offering and they have been doing original content, so ya never know, if no one else wants it, Sony may make it for themselves. It would certainly make more people aware of them.

Hopefully we'll hear something soon.  We're all very anxious for any developments that lead Rand, Mat, Perrin, and all the others, closer to our TV screens.

Rafe Judkins, the writer and showrunner for a potential Wheel of Time television series sent out a tweet earlier this week showing off his worn copies of the first three novels.  Many have speculated that this means Judkins is starting to work on a script for the show.

Adam Whitehead  sums up the current rights and details of the show on his website, stating :

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Although Sony have committed to producing the Wheel of Time TV show, they have not yet found a network production partner. According to strong rumours, they were close to a deal with Amazon TV which was then relegated by Amazon's decision to develop a Lord of the Rings prequel project instead. Although it's not impossible that Amazon would develop a second very expensive epic fantasy series (they can afford it), it would seem to make the project less likely.

Other possible partners mostly seem to be sewn up with their own fantasy projects: Netflix with The Witcher, Showtime with The Kingkiller Chronicle prequel series, Starz with American Gods (and Outlander), SyFy with The Magicians and Paramount with Shannara. That leaves some possibilities, such as CBS All Access (who need more content beyond Star Trek: Discovery, stat), AMC (although they are unlikely to be able to afford it) or FX.

FX is an interesting possibility, both for their own productions (including the high-budget, well-regarded Fargo), the fact they aired the "Winter Dragon" pilot/advert thing from three years ago and they are now owned by Disney, who may be interested in a big epic fantasy project, either for FX, Hulu or their new, adult-oriented streaming channel they are currently developing (which will have both a Star Wars live-action show and a Marvel Cinematic Universe series for its launch in 2019 or 2020).

We are all very anxious to see the show find a home, and having a fan at the helm definitely gives me hope!  If you want to keep up to date with all the latest information, you can follow Judkins on Twitter.

Variety and IGN announced today that the long-awaited TV show adaptation of The Eye of The World has finally landed at a production studio with a named writer and executive producer.