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Wheel of Time is one of our most-anticipated upcoming fantasy shows, so we were eager to find out more about the adaptation during Amazon Prime’s virtual San Diego Comic-Con 2021 panel. During the panel, which consisted of a discussion with showrunner Rafe Judkins, Wheel of Time’s first teaser poster was revealed, and then subsequently tweeted out by the series’ official account. The poster confirms that the Amazon show will debut in November 2021. Check it out below:
Wheel of Time is an epic fantasy series that spans 14 novels. The character on the poster is a fan favorite named Moiraine, a sorceress who plays a pivotal role in the story, played in the adaptation by Rosamund Pike. During the panel, Judkins praised Pike’s portrayal of the character, explaining that the actress is fully embodying the beloved Moiraine.
The showrunner described the poster itself as a moment that should be familiar to fans of the series’ first book, The Eye of the World. “I think fans of the book will recognize this as a very iconic moment in The Eye of the World, and I think what I like about it is for people that don’t know anything about the books, this is a moment where you see our lead, Rosamund Pike, Moiraine, looking back over her shoulder and saying, ‘We don’t know what’s through here, but come along for the ride,'” he said.
Judkins described his own history with the series, explaining that he and his mother read them together, and that as a young gay person in Utah, he related to a story about characters who are different than those around them. He expressed his desire to stay faithful to the story while making the best version possible for the medium of television.
“[Wheel of Time] sort of sits in the fantasy pantheon as that connective tissue between Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. It was one of the first fantasy projects that really took you into this unbelievably expansive world and created more POV characters than you usually see in fantasy books up until that time,” the showrunner explained. “Obviously I want to stay as close to the books as we possibly can… There’s a great story there. We want to tell it, and we want to tell it in the way that’s best for television. This story is a true adaptation of the series. So there will be a lot of things that are different from the books, certainly, but I think it always stays true to the heart of the books and the spine of the storytelling.”
Judkins said the characters and the world itself are the two most important things he feels the show must get right. “Those are the things that drew people in and made them read these books over and over again and give them to their friends and come back year after year for 14 full novels,” he explained. “My job is to figure out how to most effectively bring that to TV.”
One of the most interesting moments that came during the panel involved a question from moderator Tim Kash about the polarizing way that Game of Thrones, a series to which Wheel of Time will inevitably be compared, concluded its final season. Kash asked Judkins whether he’s worried about running out of source material, to which the showrunner pointed out that Wheel of Time is a complete, published story already.
“My danger will never be running out of books,” Judkins said. “I think it’s more the challenge that we face is how do you tell this story the most cohesively and the most coherently in what is a reasonable number of seasons of television? … I think you really need to know the end of your story when you start telling it. I think that’s true for television even though it’s serialized and goes many years. I sat down and broke out what I thought eight seasons of the show might look like before I started writing the pilot, because I felt like you have to build in this knowledge of where you’re going and how you’re getting there from the very beginning in order to tell the stories the best you can.”
Judkins added that he believes the story of the Wheel of Time will resonate particularly during this moment in history. “I think thematically, right now a story that is really about balance is something that’s meaningful in the world,” he said. “I think with our world being very divided and hyper polarized it’s really refreshing to see a fantasy series that is not so much good versus evil as balance versus imbalance. And I think that that is a message that’s worth writing about right now and something that is really meaningful.”
Amazon’s Wheel of Time show doesn’t have an exact release date yet, but it’s scheduled to debut on Amazon Prime Video this November. Thankfully for fans, the series has already been renewed for a second season, so things must be looking promising.
