How did one of the best selling fantasy authors of the twenty-first century lose the adaptation opportunity of a lifetime? Just ask The Kingkiller Chronicle's Patrick Rothfuss!
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00:00How did one of the best-selling fantasy authors of the 21st century lose the adaptation opportunity
00:06of a lifetime?
00:07Just ask The Kingkiller Chronicles' Patrick Rothfuss.
00:10Fans of George R. R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire know just how torturous
00:15it is to wait for a forthcoming book in a series when there's no release date in sight.
00:20That said, fans of The Kingkiller Chronicles series might want to have a word with those
00:23desperate Martin readers.
00:25Written by Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicles hit shelves in 2007 with its first
00:31installment, The Name of the Wind.
00:33Book two, The Wise Man's Fear, followed that up in 2011 after an extended but reasonable
00:37delay.
00:38However, the third book, The Doors of Stone, is still nowhere to be found.
00:42As of early 2023, readers have been waiting for well over a decade for the celebrated
00:47saga to come to a close, with essentially no information about when that conclusion
00:51will come.
00:52If you're not one of the series' devoted fans, The Kingkiller Chronicles is set in the world
00:56of Temerant, and told primarily through the main character's oral history as he recounts
01:00it to a historian known as Chronicler.
01:03The main character, Kvothe, might be a simple innkeeper in the story's present day, but
01:07he was an accomplished wizard and musician known by many ominous names in the past.
01:12In The Name of the Wind, Kvothe tells the story of his tragic childhood and his time
01:16spent in cities ravaged by crime, eventually arriving at a heralded university where he
01:21begins to master a variety of magical practices.
01:24The Wise Man's Fear follows Kvothe as his education progresses, and he travels to further
01:29corners of the world in his endless pursuit of the legendary demonic group, the Chandrian.
01:34Between the over one million copies of The Name of the Wind sold, The Wise Man's Fear
01:38reaching the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list, and the Game of Thrones-driven
01:42fantasy craze of the mid-2010s, it's not at all surprising that Hollywood moved fairly
01:46quickly to get an adaptation off the ground.
01:49In the summer of 2013, it was reported that a group of writers and producers had optioned
01:53the project, but the rights expired after a couple of years.
01:57Enter Hamilton scribe and Pulitzer Prize winner Lin-Manuel Miranda.
02:01As a self-proclaimed mega-fan of Rothfuss' work, Miranda was set to produce a TV series
02:06based on The Kingkiller Chronicle.
02:08This seemed to mean only good things for Rothfuss, as fresh off the mania aroused by Hamilton,
02:13Miranda was the hottest commodity in the industry.
02:16Miranda, who was reportedly also going to write original music for the series, was effusive
02:20with his praise for The Kingkiller Chronicle books.
02:23He told Vulture,
02:24"...I think fans have good writing just like The Name of the Wind.
02:27I had not read a lot of fantasy books at that point, but I read the first sentence and I
02:31just, I was very drawn in."
02:32Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Miranda also said his experience appearing in HBO's
02:37His Dark Materials helps him understand The Kingkiller Chronicle better.
02:41Unfortunately, the solution for how best to approach the adaptation eluded even Miranda's
02:46sharp mind, and he left the project in 2022.
02:50Rothfuss has been elusive about the third book in the promised trilogy for a while,
02:53to the point that many fans doubt the series will ever reach a conclusion.
02:57In fact, his own editor, Betsy Wohlheim, wrote in a Facebook post that she hasn't read a
03:01word of Rothfuss' work in years, sowing more seeds of doubt about the trajectory for the
03:06book's release.
03:07Furthermore, as a Reddit user summarized in Summer 2022, Rothfuss also raised money
03:12for his charity by promising to release a new chapter from the Doors of Stone by February
03:162022.
03:18As of early 2023, the chapter has yet to materialize, and Rothfuss has yet to make any formal announcements
03:23as to why, which may do some harm to his credibility in the eyes of producers.
03:28Rothfuss has, however, addressed his lack of punctuality a few times.
03:31You can't be more irritated about not finishing this thing than me or my publisher.
03:38You got, at best, your third in line.
03:41It's worth noting that Rothfuss pretty much entered the sci-fi-slash-fantasy scene with
03:45the name of The Wind, and he probably didn't expect his first two books to blow up as much
03:49as they did.
03:50Unlike authors like George R.R. Martin, who has been writing consistently for decades,
03:55Rothfuss doesn't have the longstanding reputation that might pacify fans regarding long delays
03:59in his writing.
04:00It's also worth acknowledging that Rothfuss has released two Kingkiller novellas in the
04:04time since The Wise Man's Fear came out, so fans can rest assured the universe has not
04:09been sitting stagnantly since the release of Book Two.
04:12It's likely that after Game of Thrones outstripped its source material, Hollywood might be more
04:17liable to look askance at unfinished series.
04:19Miranda's departure may not mark the end of the road for The Kingkiller Chronicles' Hollywood
04:23journey, but it may be the end until the author processes a concluding installment.