The epic fantasy shows that will dominate the next decade of TV

The Avatar: The Last Airbender Universe

Avatar: The Last Airbender, an American animated television series produced by Nickelodeon and co-created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, premiered way back in 2005, but it’s never loosened its grip on fans’ imaginations, and it picked up a whole new generation of fans once it became available on Netflix.

Avatar is set in a world in that blends Asian influences, Chinese martial arts, and elemental magic to serve as the backdrop for a captivating story about nations at war and the group of plucky kids who can set things right. The show also got a spin-off series called The Legend of Korra. Now, Nickelodeon has created Avatar Studios, a new organization dedicated to making new movies, series and shorts set in this world, headed up by the original creators. We don’t know what new stories the team will tell, although we know what we’d love to see.

The Kingkiller Chronicle

The Kingkiller Chronicle  by Patrick Rothfuss tells the story of Kvothe, a sorcerer, musician and adventurer who comes of age on the fantasy continent of Temerant. The series has been around since 2007 and gained acclaim for its stylish prose and its clever conceit: the story is set up so an older Kvothe tells his life’s story to a scribe, and his retellings are often at odds with the stories of his exploits, which have taken on a life of their own in the intervening years. Yet it’s never gotten an adaptation…

…and it still hasn’t despite attempts. There were supposedly some Kingkiller movies in the works, but we haven’t heard anything about them in a while. On the TV side of things, Hamilton’s Lin-Manual Miranda was heading up a prequel series for Showtime, but it fell apart. Last we heard, Miranda described the series as “a code that’s waiting to be cracked.”

"I’ve gained new perspective on it, having been able to be a part of [His Dark Materials] and seeing how, ‘Oh man, we did eight hours of story and we still didn’t get all of the first book in there. What hope does a movie have?!’…The real answer is a director and a script with a vision, that is a different thing [than the book] because you can’t get all of Pat[rick Rothfuss’] incredible book into one movie, and I don’t know if you can get it into one series. But it is an incredible world worth exploring…"

Fans have been waiting a long time for the third and final book in the trilogy. If and when it comes out, maybe that could give a Kingkiller show the juice it needs to cross the finish line.

The Chronicles of Narnia

Netflix is developing a new live-action adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, the classic books about a fantasy realm full of magic, mythical beasts and talking animals, and the real-world children who stumble into it. Narnia has a long history, with its birth detailed in The Magician’s Nephew and its destruction in The Last Battle. The end goal for Netflix is to build a film and television universe that tells the full story.

That said, we haven’t heard anything about the Narnia series in a while. But for now, we’ll go with producer Mark Gordan and remain optimistic: “[T]he C.S. Lewis Company and Netflix…have the capacity to translate the Narnia universe into both stellar feature-length and episodic programming,” he said. “We cannot wait to get started on the multiple productions we hope to undertake.”

The Stormlight Archive

The first novel in The Stormlight Archive, The Way of Kings, was published back in 2010, and the fanbase for the series has been growing ever since. Set on the world of Roshar, where life has adapted to deal with regular devastating storms, the books spin an epic tale full of class conflict, political strife, battle and magic. Author Brandon Sanderson writes on a robotic schedule and puts out new books without fail. He’s aiming for the series to have 10 novels in all, with four already delivered.

There’s been no formal announcement about a Stormlight Archive TV series, although Sanderson is pulling for it. He sold the rights to his Cosmere universe to DMG Entertainment back in 2016. “The people at DMG aren’t just producers or financiers. They’re fans,” the author said. “From the first moment we met, I knew they understood my vision and goals for the Cosmere, and I’ve been excited to work with them in bringing their vision for the universe to the screen.”

After close to five years in development, Sanderson fans hope the release of his latest book in the series, Rhythm of War, will speed up the process of bringing his story to the small screen.

That about wraps up the big shows that could together make the 2020s the decade of TV fantasy. From House of the Dragon to The Chronicles of Narnia, streaming services are delivering on fantasy fans’ wildest dreams. All that’s left to do is watch.

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