What should be the next fantasy series adapted for tv

[mr friendly guy]

There have been several fantasy adaptations over the years.

The Sword of truth was adapted and I understand it deviated quite a bit from the source material.
The Shannara series was sort of close to the source material, but I think it just didn't have the budget of GoT so they couldn't make those big battle scenes which made the book epic in scope.
Cursed was adapted, although from reviews it seems like something I wouldn't be interested in.

GoT of course, was I believe largely close to the source material until they ran out of material to adapt.
The Witcher was a big hit.

So with the success of GoT, which fantasy series do you think would be good to adapt to television? Note - as opposed to which one would you like adapted. The adaptation shouldn't deviate too much from the source material, otherwise it wouldn't be good to adapt.

Also list problems with the series that might turn off an audience in 2020 if we adapt too closely.

My thoughts are

1. David Edding's the Elenium.

Nice fun fantasy adventure with the get the magic item quest and then defeat the Big Bad after finding out the magic item does more than what we thought it did. It has dark humour which might appeal to some people (there was a scene I never got as 12 year old reading this, where the knight Sparhawk spies the Baron Harparin going to a brothel and wonders aloud why is he going there, and his guide, the boy thief Talen mentions that even nobles have urges, to which Sparhawk replies that the Baron has urges all right, just ones those girls won't be able to satisfy him, but he might be interested in you though).

Problems with this -

a . Eddings have civilisations which are very analogous to real world civilisations or organisations. Even as a 12 year old the Elene church struck me as like the Catholic church, the Styrics were Pagans, which might not be so offensive, but the Rendors will have problems in this day and age. I mean, they are Muslim analogues down to living in a desert and there prophet being a goat herder. I am surprise Edding didn't use the word jihad in the story.

b. Its full of standard fantasy tropes, which might not have been tropes when Eddings was starting to write (his fantasy book was published in 1982). It might still entertain especially people who might not be in fantasy and hasn't seen the tropes.

c. The Zemochs - apparently the gods consider the mixed race people an abomination. Except in the sequel series where if you're the favoured among gods, they make an exception. Might want to play this down, although since its mainly in the sequel series where this becomes a plot point, albeit a minor one.

2. Raymond E Feist - Magician - the first series, so Magician, Silverthorn, Darkness of Sethanon.

Problems
a. Slavery - ok maybe not since its a white guy being made a slave by an Asian culture.

b. Bad guys are largely Asian invading a European setting. At least in the first book, and partly in the second. Then its dark elves and a race of immortals who predated the gods.

c. Tomas killing helpless POWs. Although it wasn't his fault. He was possessed by magic armour, but I know someone is going to complain that it because there is no ramifications or sanctions for doing so, and he gets to continue being portrayed as a hero.

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Bonus points - propose a fantasy series that should definitely NOT be adapted for whatever reason.

[Elheru Aran]

I will note that currently, the Wheel of Time series and a series based upon the Second Age of LOTR are in production; WoT has filmed IIRC in Europe while the Tolkien series is still in production (and not without its share of controversy among the fan base).

[The Romulan Republic]

Buffy reboot or Dresden Files.

[Formless]

How about Dragon Riders of Pern? Everybody loves dragons! Plus it technically doubles as a science fiction story, so its helps fill that gap in current television as well.

For the bonus question-- Harry Potter, hands down. Because J.K. Rowling doesn't need more money, and she is dead to me. If you had asked this question about science fiction, I would answer with Ender's Game, for the same reason, and that series has much better writing.

[Jub]

The Stormlight Archive series would probably take GoT funding to meet expectations but if it could get that I'd like to see it attempted.

[Alkaloid]

I think before you as that you have to ask why GoT was successful.

Frankly I think that it had nothing to do with it being a fantasy series and a lot more to do with the fact that it heavily exploited the sex and violence, and relied on an increasingly cheap 'shocking' events.

Look at the way it deviates from the books, in order to maintain tension. The events like Ned's execution of the Red Wedding are the things people talk about, because the defy what mainstream TV audiences generally expect to see, so they had to keep making bad things happen to the characters, even where it is damaging to the narrative (ie Sansa having her entire plotline changed do she can be taped by Ramsey, and the Bolton's bring such shitheads not leading to them having virtually no support among the northern lords without holding hostages).

Likewise, it would be possible to shoot the series with no nudity at all, but if they had do you really think it would have grabbed attention the way it did? I think it would have just ended after a couple of seasons.

[Solauren]

The Darkness series, by H.P. Turtledove.

It's set on an Alternate Earth, where magic is real, and it's during that worlds version of World War 2.

Except he deliberately jumbled up race and ethnic details to make people think.

i.e - The American approximation; ethnically, they are discribed closer to Japanese
The Japan approximation; Big white guys with tawny hair

The Nazi approximation are all RED-HEADS who where Kilts.
The Jews are represented by what the real world germans would have considered 'pure arryan'.

Etc.

Pretty good, and it's a 6 year war, with more then enough material to get 6 full seasons out of.


Bonus Question:
Anything directly related to Dungeons and Dragons or any RPG game. Why? I don't trust'em to get it right!

[Mr Bean]

Bonus Question:
Anything directly related to Dungeons and Dragons or any RPG game. Why? I don't trust'em to get it right!

They can do Cyberpunk, they are doing Cyberpunk but I don't see an HBO tent pole show just yet. But there are a half dozen settings that might work from RPG like oh say the Witcher.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think before you as that you have to ask why GoT was successful.

Frankly I think that it had nothing to do with it being a fantasy series and a lot more to do with the fact that it heavily exploited the sex and violence, and relied on an increasingly cheap 'shocking' events.

Note that this ultimately backfired massively when they took the reliance on "shocking twists" too far, and ended up with a finale that large portions of the audience just flat-out refused to accept. Particularly Evil Daenerys, but also King Bran and Arya killing the Night King (although that's the one major twist I personally liked).

[Solauren]

Bonus Question: Anything directly related to Dungeons and Dragons or any RPG game. Why? I don't trust'em to get it right!

They can do Cyberpunk, they are doing Cyberpunk but I don't see an HBO tent pole show just yet. But there are a half dozen settings that might work from RPG like oh say the Witcher.

The Witcher TV show is focused on the extremely well written novel series that predates the video games, and is more accurate to the original source material then the video games themselves (at least in as far as the depiction of certain characters goes. I can, however, understand why you'd change the appearance of Geralds love interests to broad the audience they appeal to, and to differentiate them from each other).

Also, when I say RPG, I mean pen-and-paper RPGs, not video games RPGS. Big, big difference.
The few attempts to make a movie based on Dungeons and Dragons have failed, miserably.

[mr friendly guy]

The Stormlight Archive series would probably take GoT funding to meet expectations but if it could get that I'd like to see it attempted.

While Brandon Sanderson writes faster than George Martin, I wonder whether the shows writers will run out of material like GoT did because they caught up with the author.

[Knife]

I'll toss a vote for one of the originals... Dragon Lance.

[Jub]

The Stormlight Archive series would probably take GoT funding to meet expectations but if it could get that I'd like to see it attempted.

While Brandon Sanderson writes faster than George Martin, I wonder whether the shows writers will run out of material like GoT did because they caught up with the author.

That's always the risk with unfinished series, but I figure with 18+ months in preproduction and two 6-10 episode season per book they might be able to make it work. That said, I don't know how many more books Sanderson has planned so it may still run out of official material before it ends.

[mr friendly guy]

That's always the risk with unfinished series, but I figure with 18+ months in preproduction and two 6-10 episode season per book they might be able to make it work. That said, I don't know how many more books Sanderson has planned so it may still run out of official material before it ends.

IIRC its 10 books.

On another note, I think another good series would be Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy. Its got good points

1. Strong female protagonist

2. Ticks the diversity quotient. One of the protagonists friends is gay, the Magician school is multi ethnic etc.

3. Magic well done. There are rules, limits etc, and clever ways the protagonists used their powers - for example the bad guys were stronger, but lack healing magic so the heroine can reverse heal and kill them (they don't use the proper defense because they have never seen healing magic and they think she is too weak to fight back with the usual destructive magic).

4. Conspiracies which would be a nice reveal if you hadn't already read the books.

5. Its not so long (being a trilogy) to wear out its welcome.

[chimericoncogene]

They could give Discworld a proper TV or film adaptation in place of the latest round of misadaptations. But they'd have even odds of doing it badly, so it might not be a very good idea.

[Alkaloid]

Also, when I say RPG, I mean pen-and-paper RPGs, not video games RPGS. Big, big difference.
The few attempts to make a movie based on Dungeons and Dragons have failed, miserably.

Yah, but they have always been fairly low budget, and trying to use dungeons a Drago's to advertise. There's no plot they are trying to adapt and without a plot DnD is just a set of mechanics. You could try and adapt something like Dragonlance but that is incredibly dated now, I'm not sure how well it would do.

I'd say Memory, Sorrow Thorn would be a good choice. Finished series, nice and compact. Supposedly the thing that inspired Martin to write GoT, it's got politics,sad death, a bit of sex etc. More high fantasy than GoT was, but not excessively so, and a nice little undercurrent about the damage colonialism does to everyone involved.

Also, weirdly I think Gotrek and Felix would do well. Being attached to the Warhammer brand would probably hurt its chances of popular success, but I can easily see it being adapted into a stylised violent sort of series al la Spartacus. The pulp nature works really well for that, and slot if the books are just filler that could be cut from the adaption without upsetting anyone.

[Darth Yan]

Second dresden, but I think that Conan the Cimmerian CAN be adapted if people are able to find a balance between keeping the badass action and cool worldbuilding yet jettisoning Howard's racism (the guy was a Southerner in the 1900s and it shows)

[Lord Revan]

Bonus Question: Anything directly related to Dungeons and Dragons or any RPG game. Why? I don't trust'em to get it right!

They can do Cyberpunk, they are doing Cyberpunk but I don't see an HBO tent pole show just yet. But there are a half dozen settings that might work from RPG like oh say the Witcher.

The Witcher TV show is focused on the extremely well written novel series that predates the video games, and is more accurate to the original source material then the video games themselves (at least in as far as the depiction of certain characters goes. I can, however, understand why you'd change the appearance of Geralds love interests to broad the audience they appeal to, and to differentiate them from each other).

Also, when I say RPG, I mean pen-and-paper RPGs, not video games RPGS. Big, big difference.
The few attempts to make a movie based on Dungeons and Dragons have failed, miserably.

It's not live action but there is (or at least was) a Critical Role animated series in the works and that's D&D related (in fact it's now an official D&D setting with the release of Wildermount source book).

[Jub]

If you want to go off the board a little you could look into doing the Vampire Chronicles as an adult fantasy series.

If you want to go away from the board so hard nobody would see where the dart landed you could also go with the Darksword Trilogy.

[Gandalf]

I second the idea of Conan if it's done right. But that's a big if.

[Lord Revan]

Well it kind of depends on how integral the racism is to the story, is it something that can be easily removed without having to rewrite large sections of the story or is it something that is so integral to the motivations of the in-universe characters that you'll end up with "in-name only" adaption (I've not read the stories just seen the movies).

[Sidewinder]

Buffy reboot

Why not a SEQUEL? Have the new Slayer be named "Buffy" in honor of Buffy Summers, who saved the Slayer's mother's life. (For added high school drama, bulies refer to her as "BS", her first and middle initials.) Give Sarah Michelle Gellar a cameo in which her character is depicted in a RESPECTFUL manner- none of the humiliation that Luke Skywalker endured in 'The Last Jedi', which alienated the Original Trilogy's fans.

Then the producers will be free to have a "Buffy" who's non-white, non-binary, or whatever they think teens will like, WITHOUT making the original fans- those who spent a lot of money supporting the original series by buying VHS and DVD box sets, T-shirts, comic books and young adult novels, action figures, video games, and other merchandise- ragequit in disgust.

[Gandalf]

Wow. I didn't know people were still touchy about Last Jedi. What was "disrespectful" about their depiction of Like losing his way?

[Jub]

Wow. I didn't know people were still touchy about Last Jedi. What was "disrespectful" about their depiction of Like losing his way?

I still think Luke losing his way makes sense. He was basically flying blind with no real mentors to talk to; presuming he can't just chat up a force ghost at will. In those circumstances, you can easily see how anxiety and self-doubt would creep in and lead to the events of the movie.

[Gandalf]

Wow. I didn't know people were still touchy about Last Jedi. What was "disrespectful" about their depiction of Like losing his way?

I still think Luke losing his way makes sense. He was basically flying blind with no real mentors to talk to; presuming he can't just chat up a force ghost at will. In those circumstances, you can easily see how anxiety and self-doubt would creep in and lead to the events of the movie.

Indeed. I don't think he had a Bachelor of Education, some support staff, or anything which might have helped him in his teaching role. Having that in TLJ gave him more to do than the EU's old SuperLuke character.