Is it safe to assume that Wheel of Time fans can expect to see Amazon’s adaptation in 2021?
A recent interview with Rosamund Pike in Balance magazine mentions a 2021 release window for the TV show, though the information doesn’t actually appear to come from the actor herself!
“This character calls me, for a reason, I’m sure,” Pike said in the interview, about her portrayal of Moiraine, the enigmatic Aes Sedai who initiates the series by guiding and guarding the series’ cast against threats large and small. “I’ve played a lot of intelligent women who have suffered a huge amount and I wanted to do something different and explore some different things. And one thing about Moiraine, my character, is that she has tremendous calm. She’s quite enigmatic and very layered. She has many facets. Her outward seeming thing is that she’s very calm and I thought, ‘There’s a reason this has come into my life!’ She is very calm, and yet within her she knows she has tremendous power, and that’s very interesting. It’s a bit like with Marie Curie, when you know you have radium in your hands!”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Pike spoke about the world of the show and Jordan’s novels, as well as themes in the series that make it relevant to audiences today. You can read the full thing here.
Production on the show began last September, with the first table-read, and in November, showrunner Rafe Judkins revealed that writers’ room for season 2 has already opened. Since then, the cast and crew members have continued to unveil episode titles, with six named so far. You can read our breakdown of what they reveal about the storyline here.
The 2021 release date is peppered throughout Balance‘s article, but this release window doesn’t appear to have been confirmed or mentioned by Rosamund Pike herself. We’ve asked Amazon Studios for comment and will update this article accordingly, should we hear back.
Can’t wait!
Still can’t believe this is actually happening. I’m busy with a re-read at the moment, just finished book 5 – which ended with a pretty insane event for Moiraine… so excited for this series!
I mean, it’s March 2020 right now. Production began last year. At minimum, it should come out in 2021, if not this year.
The release date would have been given by Pike or it would have been included in Amazon Prime’s press packet spiel. It would be extremely unusual (although maybe not impossible) for the outlet to just pluck 2021 out of thin air.
Filming is currently scheduled to end in mid-May. The show will then enter post-production (and some post for earlier episodes, things like CG designs for Loial and the Trollocs etc will likely have been going on for months already). Last year The Witcher finished shooting on 29 May and was on screens in December, so on the surface it is possible for WoT to get out in December. However, it appears that WoT has both a bigger budget and more elaborate effects requirements than The Witcher, and Amazon traditionally is a bit more careful in alloting time for post for its production (Netflix can be a bit shoddy on this, as seen in the difference between the incredibly elaborate stunts and fight scenes in Episode 1 of The Witcher versus the somewhat rushed ones in later episodes).
More to the point, there seems to be now an expectation that the last few weeks of filming will be disrupted by coronavirus. Falcon and the Winter Soldier was shooting nearby and that’s just been indefinitely shut down. Wheel of Time and Season 2 of Carnival Row are also expected to be impacted. That would push the end date for filming back and likely affect the release date (it could also impact on post as well).