Amazon’s Fourth Wing television series has found its showrunner. On Monday, Variety reported that Anne With an E creator and Breaking Bad writer Moira Walley-Beckett is set to serve as showrunner for the adaptation of author Rebecca Yarros’ The Empyrean novel series. The television adaptation, which was first announced as being in development back in October 2023, is produced by Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society. Jordan is set to executive produce along with Outlier president Elizabeth Raposo, Yarros and Entangled Publishing’s Liz Pelletier.
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The Empyrean television series will kick off by taking on Fourth Wing, the first book in Yarros’ series. A second novel in the series, Iron Flame, was published last November. A third book, Onyx Storm, is set to arrive in January 2025. There are a total of five books currently planned for the series. As for Walley-Beckett, she’s best known for her six years as a writer and co-executive producer on Breaking Bad where she won three Emmy Awards for her work. She also created Netflix’s Anne With an E and Starz’s Flesh and Bone.
What is Fourth Wing About?
Fourth Wing is set in the brutal world of Basgiath War College which has just one rule: graduate or die. The story follows 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail who expected to live a quiet life among books and history until her general of a mother orders her to join hundreds of candidates seeking to join the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
“I love dragons,” Yarros explained in an interview with Today. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t — us fantasy girlies, right? I grew up reading a ton of fantasy. I knew my publisher was looking for romantasy in that new-adult line — and I love new adult, I think it’s such an unexplored genre. There are not a lot of books that deal with people in that period between adolescence and adulthood. I love that sweet spot. So, knowing that I could definitely build it on a romance, I was in love with the forced proximity of the romance being between their dragons and not necessarily (the characters). And everybody loves a morally gray hero, so I definitely had to have that one. And because I majored in history in college, it was really, really fun to explore those themes of who would get to write down our history and what would happen, perhaps, if the history we were educated on is not accurate.”
Another Popular Book Series is Getting a TV Adaptation
Fourth Wing isn’t the only popular book getting a television adaptation. Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses is in development at Hulu. That series was first announced to be in development back in 2021 and while there hasn’t been much in the way of news since then, earlier this year, President of Disney Television Group Craig Erwich confirmed that the show remains in development.
A Court of Thorns of Roses is the first book in a fantasy series by Maas — the other books are A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, A Court of Frost and Starlight, and A Court of Silver Flames — which follows three sisters, Feyre, Nesta, and Elain Archeron who are entangled in the magical world of Prythian after Feyre murders a faerie wolf in the woods, finding herself caught up in the political workings when an ancient treaty demands a life for a life. The series is massively popular and Maas’ most recent book, House of Flame and Shadow from her Crescent City series, featured ACOTAR characters in a crossover event.
