We are still about a year off from when Amazon debuts the highly-anticipated, billion-dollar TV adaptation of “Lord of the Rings” on its Prime Video streaming service. However, if you’re a fantasy fan that is desperate to find the next big thing to satisfy your “Game of Thrones” withdrawals, Amazon hopes you consider “The Wheel of Time.”
As seen in the new trailer for “The Wheel of Time,” Robert Jordan’s beloved fantasy series is getting the big-budget TV adaptation treatment from Amazon, with a cast led by the incredible Rosamund Pike. The basic premise isn’t all that different than what you expect from this sort of tale. There’s a big bad evil force that threatens the existence of this fantasy world. And people, magical and otherwise, must come together to defend it. However, the big wrinkle in this story is that the magical beings are primarily female and instead of a withering old gray-beard wizard leading the way, you have Pike.
Joining Rosamund Pike in the ensemble cast are Josha Stradowski, Marcus Rutherford, Zoë Robins, Barney Harris, Madeleine Madden, and Daniel Henney.
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“‘Wheel of Time’ is the first fantasy series that really dove into the political and cultural worlds of all these different characters,” showrunner Rafe Judkins said in a recent EW interview. “It was also one of the first to dive into multiple POV characters, so you’re following an ensemble, with each of them having their own agendas and approaches to everything. That’s always felt to me like the missing piece of the fantasy-literature landscape that hasn’t been brought to TV or film yet.”
Will “The Wheel of Time” become a massive, ‘Thrones’-sized hit for Amazon? We’ll find out when the series debuts later this fall. “The Wheel of Time” arrives on Prime Video on November 19.