Wheel of Time

[Geekyfanboy]

I read the first novel of this multi book series and loved it.. can't wait to see what they do on the big screen.

Universal Acquires Jordan's Wheel of Time
Source: Variety
August 13, 2008

Universal Pictures has acquired film rights to the late Robert Jordan's best-selling "The Wheel of Time" novel series, reports Variety.

Adaptations of the fantasy novels will begin with the first book in the cycle, "The Eye of the World."

Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon will produce for Red Eagle Entertainment, which published graphic novel adaptations of Jordan's books.

"The Wheel of Time" follows, among its dozens of characters, Rand al'Thor, the latest incarnation of a force for good called "The Dragon." Rand is born to fight an evil character called Shai'tan.

Jordan died last year at 58, but the final book in the series is still set for publication in fall 2009, with fellow fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson writing the novel's conclusion from Jordan's notes and tapes.

[Bromptonboy]

http://io9.com/the-real-story-about-that-wheel-of-time-pilot-that-aire-1684773094

[Rico]

WOW!  This flew so low under the radar even I didn't hear about it.

[Bromptonboy]

Wow, that is so bad..

[Bromptonboy]

Sorry, link to video is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvNYIEN1vIg

Might be taken down soon - I understand the Estate is not happy about it..

[Bromptonboy]

WOW!  This flew so low under the radar even I didn't hear about it.

Yeah!  This is the comments section after the article - from Jordan's widow:
"This morning brought startling news. A "pilot" for a Wheel of Time series, the "pilot" being called Winter Dragon, had appeared at 1:30 in the morning, East Coast time, on FXX TV, a channel somewhere in the 700s (founded to concentrate on comedy, according to the Washington Post).

It was made without my knowledge or cooperation. I never saw the script. No one associated with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Rigney, was aware of this.

Bandersnatch has an existing contract with Universal Pictures that grants television rights to them until this Wednesday, February 11 – at which point these rights revert to Bandersnatch.

I see no mention of Universal in the "pilot". Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan's estate, informed of this in any way.

I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence."

[Rico]

This is heading to the same area in space/time as the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special."  Let the torrents begin!

[Bromptonboy]

It really only covers the prologue of the first book.

[Bromptonboy]

Billy Zane in it - he is a relatively big name.

[Bromptonboy]

In a nutshell, Winter Dragon, which aired early this morning on FXX, was not actually FXX programming. It was "client-supplied programming," according to an FXX spokesperson — which I believe means that someone rented time on FXX to show it. Similar to a late-night infomercial.

So what gives? We spoke to Rick Selvage, CEO of Red Eagle Entertainment and the executive producer of Winter Dragon, who told us "it was more of an [issue of] getting it on the air."

Selvage had to be very careful about what he told us, but reading between the lines, it sounded as though his company has the rights to make a Wheel of Time TV series — but those rights were about to expire, unless they got something on television by a certain date.

"You probably know that a lot of pilots are put on the air at different times in different ways, and for different reasons," Selvage tells io9. As with "a lot of other properties, there's always an airdate that you need to air something by... and that was certainly part of it."

But the fact that this pilot aired in the middle of the night as paid programming does not mean there aren't lavish plans for a Wheel of Time series, says Selvage, who promises more announcements soon. Winter Dragon was "a pilot for a high-budget production television series," says Selvage. "We think there's huge demand for the television series internationally, and we're looking forward to producing it and getting it out in the marketplace."

"Obviously, the pilot was a prologue to the eye of the world, which is the first book," adds Selvage. "It was not the introduction to the series, although it is a pilot." He's gratified by the discussions he's seeing on the internet about the pilot. "Certainly, we want fans to find out about it and be excited that there's a lot more to come."

So if the show does become an ongoing series, will they need to recast? Selvage says that since Lews Therin doesn't really appear outside of the prologue, no recasting might be necessary. The prologue is "really just a dialogue between good and evil, and you have to do the prologue and the age of legends in the series." The characters of Lews and Ishmael "don't necessarily show up other than flashbacks in the series."

"We don't have to worry too much about the continuity between [the prologue] and the main story," because the actual story "starts out with young males and females at the beginning." So they don't need to worry about recasting those two characters, or else keeping Billy Zane around. While those two characters will continue to be part of the series, "when they show, whether it be film or television, or what part of the story we're telling, is to be determined."

As for the mention of "film" just now, Selvage says they had considered trying to do a Wheel of Time movie, but it was just too rich to try and fit the story into two hours. "We felt the story for the Eye of the World was very complicated. You need character development, you have to build the world... And since Game of Thrones came out and did well on television," with "high production values," that showed that Wheel of Time could work on television as well.

"That doesn't mean we won't do film at some point in the future," adds Selvage. "But at the moment, this project is destined to be a television series." And Wheel of Time has one advantage over Game of Thrones: "With all the content, over 13,000 pages, this could go a very long time. Game of Thrones has already run out of material, and we don't have that problem."

[Bromptonboy]

Good article in Wired breaking down the reasons for this 'thing':
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/wheel-of-time-tv-pilot/

[X]

My wife and I watched it when it aired and found it interesting.

[Bromptonboy]

It seems it was a placeholder put out in haste to prevent lapsing of rights to produce a TV show.  Was really only the prologue of the first book.

[ChrisMC]

It seems it was a placeholder put out in haste to prevent lapsing of rights to produce a TV show.  Was really only the prologue of the first book.

The motivations behind it are pretty crappy, the acting was as wooden as a plank, and the production value was shoddy. This thing was made to keep the TV rights, and is keeping a higher production value version of this series from being made, since Red Eagle Entertainment doesn't have the capital to mount one. And, since the late Robert Jordan used one of his last blog posts before he passed away to rail against these people, I'm pretty much against it. Just awful.

[Bromptonboy]

Could have been worse...P Jackson could have split the prologue into 3 separate pilots..     /Sarcasm  ;)