Wheel of Time optioned

[Dragonblade]

Sadly, I don't think the logistics of turning a 7000 page series into movies is feasible.

You would have to turn the series into something akin to Babylon 5. Where we would have to watch it as a TV series. And that would not necessarily be a bad thing!

The problem is a TV series probably couldn't garner the budget it would need to do the special effects justice.

If I was some super billionaire with more money than I knew what to do with, I would finance this project. LotR was what? 300 million or so?

So if 1000 pages takes 300 million to film then 7000 would take 2.1 billion dollars... A little spendy, but damn if it wouldn't be a hell of a series!

 

[mmu1]

I dunno. Is the first book that mediocre? Sorry, never did started reading Wheel of Time. I'm more of a closet Shannara fan.

Master & Commander is based on what I believe to be a very boring book. But I ended up liking the film.

At least Peter Jackson didn't spend half the first movie's length on the Council of Elrond. In any case, it will always be a huge task for the writer(s) to make an adapted screenplay.

Like I said - a mediocre series, rather than a mediocre book.

The first book of the series drags a bit, but despite that, enough development occurrs to make it worthwhile and interesting. It gets better in books 2 and 3. By book 6 there's a definite slowdown, but things are still pretty good - but in book 7, things hit a brick wall and start to meander hopelessly, and Jordan's picture magically appears in the dictionary next to the word "hack".

The real problem is that while some of them are quite good, none of the books so far are sufficiently self-contained to make into a movie, and the end of the series is who knows how many books away...

 

[Hand of Evil]

This could be the biggest horror ever! Casting of the female leads would look like the Ya Ya Sisterhood meets Mona Lisa Smiles!

I would love to see Robert Jordans face after a few screen writers are done with his story.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

With WoT, we're talking about something in the range of 6000-7000 pages. Even if you cut all the braid-pulling, nose up-turning, slowly going insane, etc. you still end up with a huge amount of story...

Naw, you have a lot less story than is immediately obvious - every book is well-padded, and the later books are almost all padding.

 

[Xath]

Mini Series

The most practical way to put Randland on the screen would be to make a miniseries for each book. This way, you can put in as much detail as needed. Let's say each book was 10-1hour episodes. That would work out well and noone would get bored. Also, making a miniseries gives you a constant set to work out of, so you wouldn't have to rebuild after each season. Don't forget, you could film the first 4 books in 1 year. It's the editing that takes the most time.

 

[Krieg]

The most practical way to put Randland on the screen would be to make a miniseries for each book. This way, you can put in as much detail as needed. Let's say each book was 10-1hour episodes.

"Practical" is hardly the word I would use to describe such an undertaking.

 

[Kaodi]

Wheel of Time

I will force myself onwards until the end of the WoT saga ( better term I think since it involves prequels ), but with the possible exception of any other books based on the same world, in particular the practically unheard of far east, I will never read a word of any of Jordan's other works. He's subjected us all to too much anguish and torment to deserve additional credit.

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

The best way, in my opinion, to do Wheel of Time would be as an anime series. Start with the standard 26, half hour half hour episodes and go from there. All the magic and everythig could be easily taken care of and it would be made for a fractiojn of the price it would take to make a hollywood movie. Also more of the story could be added. There is no way they'll do a good job with one movie. The Lotr films all blended together with parts of the last film in the new one. The spider actualy was in the second book but appeared in the third film. I see the company trying to do this to "possibly" set up future films but it could just end up hurting it. After all the books now number 12? there is just too much for them to shift through.

Another thought, Red Eagle is the company that has optioned it. Never heard of the company. Obviously it eludes to the Red eagle of Menatheren (I have no clue on the spelling of that). Where did they get the money for that? Makes me wonder about the validity. Remember that Marilyn Manson was suppose to play Willy Wonker.

 

[drothgery]

You would have to turn the series into something akin to Babylon 5. Where we would have to watch it as a TV series. And that would not necessarily be a bad thing!

The problem is a TV series probably couldn't garner the budget it would need to do the special effects justice.

Sure it could. The cost of effects has dropped with time. If you stay away from the JK Rowling school of filmmaking and don't put anything on screen until the novels are done, you're using the special effects that are possible on a decent budget five years from now (which, based on what's possible today vs. five, ten, or fifteen years ago, will probably be quite impressive).

My working theory is that you'd build your TV series based on filming three novels of material a year; it wouldn't be that hard to cut a novel down to seven or eight one-hour episodes (and so five to six hours of film).

But it has to be TV, just because there's too much to film on film schedules (at best one movie, covering one novel, per year); even if you could keep the cast together, the young-looking twentysomething you hired to play Rand for The Eye of the World will have a lot of trouble looking like he's in his early twenties when you're filming Winter's Heart nine years later.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

The best way, in my opinion, to do Wheel of Time would be as an anime series. Start with the standard 26, half hour half hour episodes and go from there.

That's how I always thought it should be. Plus, I've seen a few pictures of WOT stuff some guy drew in a more or less anime/manga style and they looked nice.