Wheel of Time, the most popular fantasy series of the past 30 years not named Game of Thrones, is heading for the silver screen. As Deadline reports, Zack Stent (Thor, X-Men: First Class) will pen the first film in a planned trilogy.
Robert Jordan’s enormous Wheel of Time saga boasts nearly 3,000 named characters and spans 15 books, with the last three completed by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan’s death in 2007. That’s a lot of source material to draw from, and so it’s interesting to note that Stentz’s film series plans to do without most of it — the better to avoid competing with Amazon’s upcoming TV adaptation.
Instead, the cinematic trilogy will be set in the Age of Legends, which was already several millennia old by the time the series launched with the first book, 1990s The Eye of the World. Fans will remember the AoL for its cataclysmic ending, as Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions sealed the Dark One back inside the Bore, saving the world but going mad in the process as the male half of the One Power became tainted. From the sound of things, Stentz’s script will pick up some time before everything goes to hell.
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“I’ve been a fan of Robert Jordan’s work for many years, and it is especially his allusions to the origins and backstory of The Wheel of Time that I have always found most intriguing,” Stentz said. “I’m excited to be bringing this era Robert Jordan conceptualized to life. A fusion of the fantasy and science-fiction genres, the Age of Legends is a tale of paradise lost, as a futuristic Garden of Eden devolves into a dangerous and broken world.”
There’s no timetable yet on the films, but fans won’t have to wait long for more Wheel of Time: a pricey television adaptation from Sony and Amazon Pictures is expected on Prime Video sometime in 2021. The series has already been renewed for Season 2.
