Today fans of the fantasy book saga, The Wheel of Time, received their first look at the upcoming TV adaptation from Amazon Prime. According to The Verge, the official trailer and release date were announced, allowing potential viewers to mark their calendar for November 19th. The series is an adaptation of Robert Jordan’s (The Great Hunt, The Fires of Heaven) 14-book saga. Check out the trailer below:
The trailer showcases many of the series’ characters and locations, focusing a surmountable amount of time on Rosamund Pike’s (Gone Girl, I Care A Lot) Moiraine Damaodred. Damodred belongs to a faction of powerful female mages known as the Aes Sedai, who are capable of accomplishing magical feats resourced from the One Power. She and the various groups of women must forge an alliance and train a new set of warriors to fend off an impending evil.
According to The Verge, five characters will be trained under Damodred for battle. They are Barney Harris’ (The Hallow Crown, Billionaire Boys Club) Mat Cauthon, Marcus Rutherford’s (Obey, County Lines) Perrin Aybara, Madeleine Madden’s (Ready for This, Dora and the Lost of Gold) Egwene al’Vere, Zoe Robins’ (Power Rangers: Ninja Storm, The New Tomorrow) Nynaeve al’Meara, and Josh Stradwoski’s (Just Friends, High-Flyers) Rand al’Thor. Jordan’s novels centered on these characters and their journey to becoming the world’s last hope.
Along with showcasing the new characters and their mighty abilities, a few iconic locations were shown in the trailer. The White Tower of Tar Valon, home to many of the Aes Sedai, was shown as well as the desolate Shadar Logoth. Meaning “Place Where the Shadow Waits,” Shadar Logoth was a thriving, populous city before befalling the corruption of the Shadow. The trailer also showed glimpses of the corrupted Myrddraal and Trollocs who want to prevent Moiraine’s crusade.
Jordan, less commonly known as James Oliver Rigney Jr., penned The Wheel of Time in 1990, with plans of a six-book series. However, 23 years later, the final book of the series was published in 2013, totaling 15 books, a prequel novel, and two companion works. While Prime is producing the first full-fledged series of his work onscreen, this isn’t the first adaptation.
According to The Verge, in efforts to reclaim the rights from the Jordan estate, FXX premiered secretly filmed episode in 2015. The half-hour entry, entitled The Wheel of Time: Winter Dragon, virtually aired unseen. Amazon has since gathered the rights to the material and, in 2018, announced its plans to adapt the series. Due to COVID delays, production was put off for quite some time.
The Wheel of Time is only one of Prime’s upcoming epic fantasy series hoping to fill the void left by HBO’s Game of Thrones. The streaming platform has the multimillion-dollar Lord of the Rings series expected to be released in the fall of 2022.