Kingkiller Chronicle showrunner glad Showtime passed on the series

For a while now, Lionsgate has been trying to take Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle books — a high fantasy series about a red-headed genius/wizard/martial artist/sex god named Kvothe — into a thing. That includes a movie series adapting the main books and a TV show set some time before Kvothe’s story, one that might possible follow his wandering musician parents around the land of Temerant.

Unfortunately, both projects are stalled. We haven’t heard anything about the movies for a long while, and while Showtime was at one time going to run the TV show, the network passed on it a few months back. “We haven’t cracked it,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, who’s writing the music for the series. “As you know, it’s an incredibly rich story and complex world. When we crack it, there’ll be news. But not before it’s absolutely right. Working with Pat has been a total joy.” Lionsgate is currently shopping the series around.

Meanwhile, showrunner John Rogers is keeping a pretty low profile, but he still seems attached to the project. Just lately, he took to Twitter to put a positive spin on recent events, saying he’s glad the Kingkiller show didn’t come out now because then it would, like Netflix’s The Witcher, be unfairly compared to Game of Thrones, which is still fresh in everyone’s minds.

The Witcher, for reference, is getting meh reviews from critics (although a good response from audiences). And people are definitely comparing it to Game of Thrones.

Rogers is referring here to an already-infamous review of The Witcher from Entertainment Weekly, where the critics openly admitted to not watching the whole series before lambasting it.

Okay, so clearly Rogers has been hurt by critics before. Speaking as someone who is a genre fan and who did watch the whole season and read the books, I can say that I thought that The Witcher had plenty of problems even without needing to compare it to Game of Thrones, although I did enjoy the series overall.

I also wonder if Rogers is fooling himself if he thinks critics aren’t going to compare a Kingkiller show to Game of Thrones if it only comes out later. Considering the impact Game of Thrones had on the industry — including creating an environment where shows like The Witcher and Kingkiller can get made in the first place — I don’t think we’re anywhere near done talking about it.

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h/t Newsweek