Adaptations of epic fantasy series are tricky things, as anyone who’s followed The Wheel of Time‘s long road to the screen knows. In 2018, Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Saga was optioned for television; just a few months later, Feist said it hadn’t panned out.
But now, an even more exciting potential adaptation is in the works. A new SFF and horror-focused company, Six Studios, has picked up the rights to the first six Riftwar books—meaning Feist’s solo Riftwar Saga and the Empire Trilogy, which he co-wrote with Janny Wurts.
Deadline says the Riftwar Saga is “considered one of the best known pieces of fantasy IP not yet adapted for the screen,” which is an interesting way to frame it. The first trilogy, beginning with Magician, centers on a young orphan named Pug whose mastery of magic may be vital in a battle not just between different people, but between the forces of Order and Chaos. The Empire Trilogy takes place concurrently, but is set on a different world, Kelewan, where a girl named Mara unexpectedly becomes the head of her family and must learn to play her world’s complex political games. The two worlds are brought together by the Rift that gives the series its name.
Adapting the books together makes a ton of sense; the contrast between the two worlds, and the drastically different experiences of Pug and Mara, have the potential for really compelling viewing. (Also, it keeps the main characters from being almost all men.)
Six Studios has quite a team assembled to adapt the books, including writers from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Fear the Walking Dead. Two former Lucasfilm executives, Kiri Hart (The Last Jedi, Star Wars Rebels) and Stephen Feder (Solo), will consult on the series. Jeff Huang and Carl Choi, the founders of Six Studios, will produce. No network or streaming platform is attached yet.
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On the one hand, we have the potentially tedious option of establishing the details of two fantasy worlds for Pug and Tomas and Mara before the rift brings the two cultures into conflict. On the other hand, we could plunge our audience into the middle of the action and backfill with flashbacks. But I think The Book of Boba Fett has burned me out on what’s become a genre trope in the decades since Highlander / Forever Knight / Highlander: The Series.
jeffronicus, I won’t disagree with you at all. Regarding the original trilogy, in a nutshell I think they should stick to the books and how it was dealt with in the order it was written. I don’t recall there being that many flashbacks that could really be dealt with in 5-10 minutes. Most of them were pretty involved and would be worthy of a full episode or close to it.
While I know I have read the Empire trilogy I am drawing a complete blank about it.
In my opinion, the Empire trilogy is the better of the two series. That is partially because it is not an entirely male series, partially because the character development is flat-out better, and partially because I really enjoy political fantasy. There is very little magic, no beings of supernatural power (except for that little bit of magic), and everything makes sense in the context of the story. Murder, revenge, dishonor, honor, glory, and a caste system that (again) makes sense in the context of the story. My copies are falling apart from reading them so often.