At long last, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle is getting the adaptation it deserves. Deadline has reported that A24 and producer Jennifer Fox will be adaptating the iconic series for TV, and unlike previous adaptations, this one actually has the author’s blessing.
“Ursula Le Guin is a literary legend with a huge fan base and her work has been translated into practically every written language on the globe,” Fox told Deadline. “She is second only to Tolkien in influence in this genre, and before she died last year, she agreed to put her most beloved work in my hands. This project is, therefore, a sacred trust and priority for me as well as an opportunity to create an iconic piece of American culture.”
Previously, the Earthsea Cycle was made into a Studio Ghibli film and a Sci-Fi channel mini-series, both of which, uh, left something to be desired, to say the least.
“Both the American and the Japanese film-makers treated these books as mines for names and a few concepts, taking bits and pieces out of context, and replacing the story/ies with an entirely different plot, lacking in coherence and consistency,” Le Guin wrote on her blog. “I wonder at the disrespect shown not only to the books but to their readers.”
The author criticized both adaptations for white-washing the books (Earthsea famously features a POC cast), adding that the anime was “preachy” and morally confused, and the mini-series “a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence.”
This seems unlikely to happen with A24, a studio that has consistently put out original, groundbreaking, and critically acclaimed content made by diverse creators. And rest assured, the late author’s son Theo thinks so as well.
“Ursula long hoped to see an adaptation of Earthsea that represented a collaboration between her ideas and words and the visual storytelling of others,” Downes-Le Guin told Deadline. “I feel very fortunate that, with Jennifer Fox and A24, we have a bedrock of producing and development experience that can bring the sweeping narrative and moral truths of my mother’s work to screen.”
It’s too early for news of casting, production, or a release date, but we’ll update this page when those details come out.
As long as they remember there are only three Earthsea novels, it should be fine.
You are joking, right? There are FIVE Earthsea novels plus numerous short stories/novellas.
Wizard of earth sea, tombs of atuan, the farthest shore, Tehanu and the Other Wind.
PLUS a touching new final chapter to Earthsea, Firelight, discovered in her papers after Ursula’s death. She was working on it during her collaboration with Charles Vess for the Books of Earthsea, the Complete Illustrated Edition, and they magically found the time and space to include it therein.
@2. As I said, only three. Just like there’s only one Highlander movie. ;-)
@@.-@, I agree with you.
While I see why LeGuin decided later to change the discourse made in the first three novels by retconning them in the light of changed sensibilities in herself and in the world, I still feel that I preferred that discourse at the point were it was left originally.
As an A24 fangirl that way everyone seems to stan MCU on here, all I can say is ‘yes.’ (Pretty certain that A24 is the indie world equivalent of MCU anyway.)
I agree with Almuric, @@.-@, Fizz, @5, There can be Only Three.
I am VERY much looking forward to a decent adaptation of Earthsea which respects the source material.
On the question of how many real Earthsea books there are: I myself am more in tune with Le Guin’s later sensibility and views, but, like Jo Walton, I would say that her retconning in the later Earthsea writings did not work. You can’t overhaul the mytho-psychological backstory of a fictional world to that extent and have the whole thing hold together.
That said, I think it would be possible to do a decent adaptation either of the original trilogy-Earthsea or of the retconned Earthsea. The adaptation would not have the problem of trying to hold the two visions together.
As someone who has only read the first three (or only three!) Earthsea books, can I ask what the change entailed between the first three and the rest?
I loved the Earthsea novels when I grew up, I reread them countless times and have so looked forward to a good TV och film adaptation. So I am very happy about this.
And just to be clear, there are five main novels, plus the short stories. I do not know what retconning and changes @@.-@ @5 and @7 are talking about, because I never saw them while reading. I love the stories equally.
As I remember the reception to the later Earthsea books, there were people unhappy with what happened to Tenar and another group unhappy that the books focused on Tenar. (No overlap.)
what @10 said.
Tenar, Tehanu and Irian are as essential as Ged and Ogion.
I’m sorry but you are talking of a “Ursula K. Le Guin-Approved” adaptation in the headline and go out of your way to double down on this claim by writing “this one actually has the author’s blessing”.
But is this possible if Le Guin has died almost two years before? Has this deal been in the works for two years?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to hear about an adaptation in the works that will be a faithful one but the fact that the “late author’s son Theo thinks” that this is going to be an adaptation the his mother would have approved of is very much not the same as her doing so.
Your claims look like false labeling (and maybe clickbait?). You should be better than this.
Unless I am missing something.
@13
suggest you read 2nd paragraph of article again.
@14: Sure, producer Jennifer Fox claims (and I have no reason not to believe her) that Le Guin “agreed to put her most beloved work in [Fox’s] hands”. You say that Le Guin approved of this particular adaptation to be made.
But this doesn’t set aside the new adaptation from the previous ones. These were also made with Le Guin’s “approval” but we know that Le Guin decidedly did not approve of result of those adaptations.
Whether or not the result would have pleased Ms. Le Guin is conjecture, especially at this point.
So while technically the label “approved” is not incorrect, it doesn’t mean what the article suggests it means. It simply means that Le Guin agreed to the adaptation while she was still alive, certainly in the hopes that this time it will be done well.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that, and here’s to hoping that this time it will be done well! :-)
Le Guin approved of the mini-series, too. The people who hijacked it told her than her readers didn’t matter. The TV show would be seen by a lot more people. None of them would care about her books.