NEWS: Sony & Amazon Relinquish Rights to The Wheel of Time

“But no matter what happens, what pain we face, what heartbreak, even death, the Wheel keeps turning.”
—Tam al’Thor (Season 1, Episode 1: “Leavetaking”)

It may not be the end for fans of The Wheel of Time. However, it does look very much like it is an end. Of course, the news was not entirely unexpected. Back in May, Deadline reported that the streaming series based on Robert Jordan’s series of fantasy novels had been canceled. However, many fans of the show held out hope that the series would be able to continue in some form.

Many of us at Fellowship of Fans had been watching The Wheel of Time and, despite a certain amount of rivalry and bad blood between some fans of that show and The Rings of Power, we decided that it was in our best interest to promote good fantasy television wherever it may be found. Our efforts included a livestream to give publicity to a petition to save The Wheel of Time, as well as a watch-along of all three seasons of the show (just recently concluded).

News from DragonCon

Unfortunately, the latest news is that, with the cancellation of the show, and no plans to renew it, the rights have reverted to iwot productions limited. This means that Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios no longer have any rights to produce a streaming series based on Robert Jordan’s fantasy series, The Wheel of Time. The chances of this particular adaptation continuing—with Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred, Josha Stradowski as Rand al’Thor, and many other fine actors—seem to be effectively nil. (I personally will miss Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand.) The Wheel keeps turning, however, and actors, directors, crew and all need to find other projects to support their careers.

The news of the rights reverting was reported recently on Reddit, where it was attributed to the director of JordanCon, an annual convention devoted to the works of Robert Jordan. (To be clear, JordanCon is not going on at the moment. The news apparently comes from DragonCon, which recently concluded. Both are held in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.) Jennifer Liang, who is the co-founder and Chair of JordanCon, stepped in to confirm that the rights have reverted to iwot productions limited, and they “are not looking for another streamer to pick it up.”

The Current Rights Holders

iwot productions limited was formerly known as Red Eagle Entertainment, LLC. Red Eagle has a somewhat notorious reputation in The Wheel of Time fandom. Robert Jordan sold them adaptation rights to the book series in 2004. They announced that a film series was in development, but nothing came of it. They sold the film rights to Universal Pictures in 2008. Universal developed a script, but ultimately decided against filming it, and the film rights reverted to Red Eagle.

Winter Dragon

Red Eagle then tried to interest Sony in developing a television series. However, with the rights about to revert to Robert Jordan’s widow, they went ahead and hastily produced a 22-minute short film, titled Winter Dragon. The film aired unadvertised on February 18, 2015 during a late-night infomercial time slot. This move was highly reminiscent of the first film adaptation of The Hobbit in 1967 (more background on that at Tolkien Gateway).

According to Red Eagle, Winter Dragon was the “pilot” of a television series that was in development. Nobody believed them. Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan’s widow, disclaimed knowledge of the production. A lawsuit and a countersuit ensued. The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court, the end result of which was The Wheel of Time streaming series produced by Sony and Amazon.

Future Adaptations

With the rights reverting to iwot productions limited, the future of Wheel of Time adaptations is hazy. However, presumably they do wish to collect revenue from further adaptations. Indeed, with the streaming series having exposed Robert Jordan’s works to a larger audience, the property is likely as valuable now as it ever was. Two obvious routes to take at the moment would be feature films and video games. As streaming series increasingly compete with films in terms of production costs (and brevity), and make audiences wait two years or longer for a couple of months of television or less, the price tag of a film—or even a film series—becomes more attractive. Likewise a video game franchise.

About the Series

The Wheel of Time television series was announced by Harriet McDougal on April 28, 2016. A year later, Sony Pictures Television was announced as the production company, with Rafe Judkins as showrunner. On October 2, 2018, Amazon Studios was announced as a co-production company, with Prime Video as the distributor.

Amazon’s involvement in The Wheel of Time was revealed nearly a year after the announcement of their deal with the Tolkien Estate to produce what became The Rings of Power. However, The Wheel of Time went into production earlier, with principal photography commencing on September 16, 2019.

Season 1

Season 1 debuted on November 19, 2021. It attracted a large number of viewers, including some Tolkien fans like me, who were curious to see what an Amazon fantasy series might look like. Unfortunately, the first episode was fairly weak, which may have dampened the interest of many viewers. The series became progressively better over the next few episodes. Unfortunately, the quality dipped again. The season finale, in particular, was widely regarded as a disappointment.

Some of the issues with the last few episodes may be attributed to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the actor for Mat Cauthon departing the production for personal reasons. Of course, there were also the usual controversies over adaptation choices as well, dividing fans of the book series into some who were opposed to the series, and others who felt it deserved a chance.

Season 2

Season 2 aired beginning September 1, 2023. Unfortunately, the show’s audience size was much reduced, presumably because many of those who had failed to be impressed by Season 1 felt no desire to continue watching. It isn’t unheard of for shows with a lackluster first season to go on to become popular favorites. Star Trek: The Next Generation is an oft-cited example. However, in the current climate of streaming television, it’s much more difficult for shows to gain traction if they fail to make a good first impression.

I watched Season 2 primarily out of curiosity. I was particularly interested to see if the writers would address the matter of Moiraine badmouthing her hero Lews Therin in the first episode of Season 1, and then demonstrating that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, by essentially copying his plan that led to the “Breaking of the World”, in the last episode. (I don’t recall Moirane criticizing Lews Therin in the three books that I have read so far.) I received no such satisfaction from the writers; however, I had to agree with those of us who watched the second season that the show improved noticeably.

Season 3

Season 3 aired from March 13, 2025. Those who watched it agreed that it was a great improvement even over Season 2. My favorite episode was Episode 4: “The Road to the Spear”. It was a lore-heavy episode, and potentially confusing, as Josha Stradowski, who plays Rand al’Thor, was reused to portray six of his ancestors of varying ages. However, the revelations were well paced, and the lore was not presented in an overloaded “Star Trek technobabble” manner. It does help to be familiar with earlier episodes of the show, however. I soon found that I was not alone in my opinion. A common refrain was that “The Road to the Spear” was “the best hour of fantasy television”. An example of such a review may be found on Collider.

Although Episode 4 was a stand-out episode, the other episodes were also quite good, and the season finale ended the season on a high note. Season 3 of The Wheel of Time received rave reviews overall from those who watched it. Unfortunately, the number of people who watched Season 3 was much reduced from that of those who tuned in to watch Episode 1 of Season 1. On May 23 the show’s cancellation was announced, barely a month after the last episode aired.

Cancellation

Fans of the show understandably regarded the cancellation as an injustice. What other fantasy series currently in production is better? However, television production and distribution companies are not, as a rule, singular, wealthy patrons of the arts, judging works primarily by their quality and the prestige they bring to their brand. (Arguably, Amazon may have been acting as such when it purchased distribution rights to The Expanse. However, Jeff Bezos is no longer in a position to make such decisions.)

Instead, such entities are corporations—collections of individuals who have a shared interest in making a living and the responsibility of returning a profit to their shareholders. To them the most important metrics are those that show how many people are watching a show, and how much. And The Wheel of Time apparently just didn’t have the numbers to justify the continued expense.

What Next?

Only time will tell how soon we will see another turning of the Wheel—and in what form it will appear. It probably won’t be as a live-action streaming series. Perhaps it will be a feature film, a video game, a graphic novel, an anime series, or—who knows?—maybe a theme park ride. In the mean time, if you haven’t watched The Wheel of Time on Prime Video, I recommend you do that soon. You can also follow our watch-along here.

For those who are a little bit more ambitious, now might be a good time to start reading the book series. I read the first three volumes in anticipation of Season 1, but then I decided it was probably best to watch the show first and read the books afterwards. Now that it looks like there is no chance the series will be revived, however, I might just go ahead and finish the series. It’s the only way I’ll be able to get to the Last Battle—for the time being.