Robert Jordan is renown in the fantasy novelist worlds for his super popular Wheel of Time series. Some even compare its epic scope to Lord of the Rings (all fantasy gets compared to LoTR eventually). Unfortunately Jordan died writing his final installment of the 12 book series which first was published in
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
My wife is a rabid fan of this series and I lost her completely one Christmas when she received his latest chapter (after the first 6 books, there was often 2-3 YEARS between installments) as a gift and wouldn’t put it down til it was done.
I wanted to share in my wife’s fascination with this fantasy writer but I just couldn’t stomach his writing style. Robert Jordan is SO long winded and over detailed he makes Tolkein look like Cliff notes.
I kid you not. I sat down with the first book of the series and counted out 14 pages of descriptive that basically narrowed down to “Two guys are traveling to this town in the woods. One of them thought he saw someone and decided he was wrong. Oh look, here we are” I wish I was exaggerating, but that is the extent of the story within the first 14 pages of the book. Sorry to spoil it for you. There are over 800 pages of story, so you can see why I gave up so early. I just couldn’t get into it. I read another 100 pgs before realizing it doesn’t get better. However, those who can live through this exhaustive technique of writing praise it.
Given the degree of nauseating detail Jordan offered in his books, the visuals should be pretty spot on. They have LOTS of source material to work with. As with any book translation I expect there to be changes and re-writes to adapt it to the big screen so I won’t be able to share in this complex fantasy world with my wife. She’s likely to spend the movie telling me what was different in the book and it will ruin it for both of us.
I am told the world Jordan crafted for his books is fantastic. Should make for a good story if they do it right.
robert jordan wrote his books for people with good imaginations. you may not enjoy his writing style, but for those of us who do reading the book is like watching a movie already.
They couldn’t find anyone who might actually look like Rand is described in the books?! Just finished “The Gathering Storm”, a phenomenal piece of work. I have to believe R. Jordan would be happy with Sanderson’s effort. I’d love to see Liam Neeson as Lan.
I LOVE this series. I’ve read it 5 times, and am getting ready to read it again. I can’t get enough. However, I just can’t see them doing the story justice on the big screen. So much would have to be cut, that no one who hasn’t read the books would be able to follow the plot. I would especially hate to see it come to something like The Legend of the Seeker (the TV adaptation of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series). That show bears only the vaguest resemblence to the books. I’m sure I’ll go see it anyway – I’m that addicted – and I’m sure that’s what they’re counting on from Jordan’s fans. But really, I wish they’d just leave it alone.
I like the idea of an HBO series and yes Jordan is very long winded but that is how you create a world and if anything he has done that. I’ve read the series 3 times and I am working on my forth because of world he has created. When I read the books i can almost see the places he describes and I can invision the the entire world as a whole which i could not do with out his brilliant writing.
As for the movie, I believe that focusing on certain story lines for each movie would be the most logical way to go. “Eye of the World” focuses on mainly on Rand Al’thor but after that the story splits off into numerous story lines. Overall, I can see making six or seven movies focused on each storyline if done properly. This is not unheard of (Harry Potter) but if it boiled down to it this entire series could be down in three or four movies. The audience would lose alot of the descriptiveness of the world Jordan created but its not impossible. Hey, it worked for “Lord of the Rings”.
@Supernetusuer, Talk to Alan Moore about a writer who’s dream it was to be adapted to the big screen.
I think you will find out that some writers are just happy being writers. Much of being adapted to film means that someone is hired to basically rewrite your work.
Most of the time that means raping your creative works for financial benefit.
I didn’t like the books for the same reason. Tho’ I managed to get through 2 books, I was slow, I kept on thinking I’d get some pay off, it took me 2 books realised the author was not actually going to reach any point. And also I grew to dislike some of the main characters, especially the main ‘chick’ in it, she was an idiot!
I’m much older and wiser now, I don’t let bad authors like that waste my time any more. But it’s certainly was educational to what and what doesn’t make good ‘story telling’.
As a writer, (who is stalled on her first novel AGAIN, LOL), all I can say is that its almost every writers dream to get the movie rights as well as the translation rights for any work you’ve got. I’m not familiar with this series, The Eye of the World, as much as I am with Cormic McArthur’s The Road, which I’m going to scrape together some cash to go see for sure. Believe me, the first thing you learn in writing school is that nauseating detail is good. Too little detail is bad because you pretty much can’t inspire the reader. Your wife sounds like a good reader, someone who knows what she wants in a novel. Most people define a good book as one they can’t put down. I was this way with The Road. It gave me nightmares but boy was it ever a good book. I have stalled also on a project I have about getting Memoirs of A Geisha and reading the book BEFORE I see the movie. I didn’t watch Earthsea – the movie, when it came out because I was committed to reading the book. Needless to say that didn’t happen. I still have the book in a box somewhere, waiting to be read.
I really don’t know how they can make a movie out of this series. There are so many books and each is so long that you’d need friday the 13th-like sequels to manage to even brush against the point of the book.
There is also a lot of magic in the books. Hack and slash fantasy seems to film very well (not a lot of magic in LOTR) but when you start throwing in casting spells and warping differnt places etc, it starts to get a little hokey.
If they do manage to pull it off it will be because of all the double and triple crossing that he puts in his books. One of the most entertaining things is you can never trust ANYONE in the books.
Sooo excited about this. And I agree that his descriptiveness can get a bit taxing, but I thought the point of reading was to enjoy it, not to finish it as soon as possible. To adapt this into a movie (or series of movies) will involve a lot of cutting though, because in addition to the main characters (Another poster mentioned 18, which is a good approximation, depending on your definition of ‘main’, and whether you’re counting villains), there’s about 40-50 characters that play significant supporting roles that are pretty key to advancing the plot. It will be interesting to see how they deal with this.
MIKE G- they are doing that with a song of ice and fire which, IMO, is a far superior series.
I have read this series 3 times through, yes he gets long winded at times, but I have learned to accept that. I am very excited about the movies but I really doubt they will make a movie for each book, and there is too much there to do anything less, I agree that a SciFi or HBO series would be a better place for WOT.
Paul,
I agree with you. There is way to much material for it to be a film series. I always felt that HBO should pick it up and make a series about it. I think that they could stretch each book into a season.
The fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is finishing the final book titled “A Memory of Light”.
Robert Jordan left piles of notes and told the ending to his family before he passed away. He had also written near half of the book himself.
Its going to be released next year when Sanderson completes it.
i started reading this series a long time ago and loved it. then about 7 books in, i thought, “is he just milking this series for all it’s worth?” and i decided not to read any more books until he finishes the series. cause i didn’t want to be left hanging if he died in the middle of making it. dang.
anyone know if he left notes on how it is supposed to end, or if another author is going to finish it?
Rodney, I feel a profound connection via life experience to you… My wife, and my reaction to trying to read the series… I’ve been EXACTLY there!!!
WOT is exactly why I love reading comics. If the author is going to be so picky about what something looks like, draw me a picture, and quit wasting my time.
I PROMISED my wife ages ago that I’d read the series. Dabel Brothers are (under what publisher, I’ve no idea) doing comic book adaptions of the series… So, I’ll get that to fulfill that promise.
As a movie though, she tells me that there’s around EIGHTEEN major characters… Galactica has about a dozen, and has itself a full load covering them adequately enough in a TV series. Wheel of Time should be Sci-Fi Channels next tent pole series.
wow….
i cant even get through the 1st LOTR movie. i really want to cause i hear great things of those movies but i always fall asleep….. i should drink a few red bulls & try again…..
Never read the books, but I played the computer game. Seemed like a very typical fantasy world to me. Orc-like creatures, wizards, magic relics, castles. Guess I’ll have to wait and see what the big diff is.
I’m very happy about this I love the books.
Hopefully they’ll do it justice and the final book will be released next year its being finished by another author.
Its called “A Memory of Light” and the author finishing it is named Brandon Sanderson
the books started out very promising, but just got terrible as time went on. it was very unfortunate.
that and every female character he writes is the same irritating character. also very unfortunate.
@Alex. You are not married are you?
Its never that easy.
LOL, maybe when this movie comes out, and right before you go and see it, you can give her a pre-speech about how you know the movie and book are different, and that you and her should just watch the movie out of fun..
maybe that might help..