New, “authentic” adaptations of Terry Pratchett’s books are coming

Let me set the scene for you: a while back, BBC America announced that it was making a show called The Watch based on novels written by Terry Pratchett, the beloved author of the Discworld books who passed away in 2015. The Watch takes place in Ankh-Morpork, where crime is legal and the rag-tag members of the City Watch have a hell of a time keeping a cap on things.

The problems began when BBC America released images from The Watch, which stars Game of Thrones veteran Richard Dormer (Beric Dondarrion) as Captain of The Watch Sam Vimes. You see, in Pratchett’s novels, Ankh-Morpork is a medieval/Renaissance-ish city on its way to becoming steampunk, whereas the images made it look more like Blade Runner with brighter lighting.

Image: The Watch/BBC America

One way to look at this is a bold reimagining of Pratchett’s work. You could also see it as disrespectful bullcrap. A lot of fans took the latter position. Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna and former assistant Rob Wilkins, who now operate Pratchett’s production company Narrativia, seemed to side with them: after the pictures were released, they both tweeted a link to a 2004 Slate article written by fantasy legend Ursula K. Le Guin about how a Sci Fi Channel adaptation of her Earthsea series “wrecked my books.” You can read what you like into that, but I think the message is pretty clear.

So keeping all that in mind, The Guardian now reports that Narrativia has partnered with Motive Pictures and Endeavor Content to create “truly authentic … prestige adaptations that remain absolutely faithful to [Terry Pratchett’s] original, unique genius.”

"The spirit of this new alliance has been forged from a shared love of the source material and a commitment to create an epic series, which will kick off with some of the most iconic titles in Sir Terry’s fiercely incisive and satirical universe."

Given the history here, it’s hard not to read every mention of honoring the source material as a little dig at The Watch, but Wilkins denied that this new project was inspired by the BBC America show. “Though Narrativia retain an executive producer credit in The Watch, they have no creative involvement in the project,” he said. “However, they of course wish The Watch all the best.”

Rhianna, meanwhile, said that Motive and Endeavor Content “perfectly share our vision” of what a Discworld screen adaptation should be. “Discworld teems with unique characters, witty narrative and incredible literary tropes, and we feel these should be realised on screen in a form that my father would be proud of.”

And finally, there’s this note from Wilkins:

"The Discworld books are a huge source of joy to millions of readers, and rightly so; every paragraph, phrase and footnote was crafted with brilliance and flair and we are committed to bringing Terry’s world to the screen with the respect and care it deserves."

Again, you can read what you like into that.

More seriously, it’s not like Wilkins of Rhianna would need to want to stick it to another project to want to adapt Terry Pratchett’s books for the screen. He wrote a lot of Discworld books (41, to be exact) and while plenty of them have had television adaptations — Good Omens, which Pratchett wrote with Neil Gaiman, made a splash on Amazon last year, for example — plenty of others haven’t. There’s a boom in genre TV going on right (or at there was until the coronavirus shut everything down), so why not get in on the ground floor by adapting a rich store of beloved stories?

That said, I can’t help it if it’s fun to read shade into errant comments. Don’t you judge me!

Anyway, we’ll keep an eye on all of this. There’s no official release date for The Watch as of yet — like everything else, it was probably affected by the coronavirus — but hopefully it can make it out this year.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

h/t The Wertzone