Amazon’s best replacement forThe Wheel of Timehas suffered a major setback in the development phase. Earlier this year,The Wheel of Time, based on the bestselling epic fantasy book series by Robert Jordan (finished by Brandon Sanderson), was surprisingly canceled after season 3, despite the latest outing’s major storytelling improvements and high ratings from audiences and critics alike.
Sadly,The Wheel of Timenever managed to overcome the growing pains of its first season,andAmazon canceled the show due to low viewership. Naturally, Amazon Prime Video is now looking to get the ball rolling on another fantasy series, one which has the potential to become a much bigger hit:Fourth Wing, based on Rebecca Yarros' mega-sellingEmpyreanromantasy series.
Fourth Wingfollows 20-year-old prospective student Violet Sorrengail as she enters Basgiath War College, a competitive, do-or-die setting in which hopeful cadets prepare themselves to be magically bonded to the most dangerous predator of all: dragons. During her training, she meets Xaden Riorson, a dragon rider just as seductive and perilous as the winged beasts themselves.
Amazon’sFourth Wingadaptationhas suffered a major loss, however, asthe series' showrunner, Moira Walley-Beckett, who has worked on critically acclaimed hits likeBreaking BadandAnne with an E, has officially left the projectafter previously signing on in July 2024 (viaVariety). This is especially disappointing as, earlier this year,Yarros revealed that she was incredibly excited about Walley-Beckett’s scriptsfor the show.
What This Means For Amazon’s Fourth Wing TV Series
When Will Viewers Get To Meet Violet Sorrengail And Xaden Riorson?
As the show has not yet been ordered to series, and a cast has yet to be named, it doesn’t look like fans of Yarros' treacherous, war-torn, dragon-led world will be seeing their favorite characters on screen anytime soon, though Prime is determined to push forward with the project.
Onyx Storm, the third book in theEmpyreanseries, was the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years, as reported byThe New York Times.
According toVariety,sources report that several new names are in the running for showrunner, includingWandaVisionandAgatha All Alongcreator and writer Jac Schaeffer, who recently signed a development deal with Amazon’s MGM studios. Schaeffer could be an exciting choice forFourth Wing, having created two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most creative, female-led TV shows.
Our Take On Amazon’s Fourth Wing TV Series
The Empyrean Novels Are Challenging To Adapt
Lengthy high-fantasy novels are notoriously difficult to adapt for an on-screen medium, a challenge faced byThe Wheel of Timeand many of its peers, including Prime’sThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,Netflix’sShadow & Bone, and more.
The biggest challenge Amazon faces with itsFourth WingTV series is the casting of Violet Sorrengail and Xaden Riorson.
The source materials for those shows, as well as Yarros’Empyreannovels, are full of rich, world-building detail and complicated storylines, and it can be difficult to choose which characters to omit and which subplots to avoid without irrevocably changing the story’s themes and main conflict.
By far the biggest challenge Amazon faces with itsFourth WingTV series, however, is the casting of Violet Sorrengail and Xaden Riorson. Though the war between the dark magic-wielding venin and the dragon riders is the book series' primary storyline,the romantic relationship between Violet and Xaden glues the entire series together. If the casting isn’t right – Xaden’s, especially – the whole endeavor could fail before it’s even begun.
Luckily for fans, though, Yarros is serving as an executive producer on the project and has promised that Xaden and Violet’s casting will be true to the books. Hopefully, Amazon will find exciting new actors to helm their upcoming fantasy flagship show, asFourth Wingcould be the launch point for an incredible career, just asThe Wheel of Timewas for some of its younger, newer actors.
All seasons ofThe Wheel of Timeare available to stream now on Prime Video.
