The Wheel of Time fans are not prepared to go quietly into the abyss of cancellation. A group of passionate fans have just launched a campaign to help save their beloved fantasy show, complete with a new website called SaveWOT.com, petition, letter-writing campaign and more. The Dark One may have won this round, but they're not prepared to give up quite yet!
This past Friday it was announced that Amazon Prime Video was doing the unthinkable: canceling its epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time. Cancellations happen all the time in Hollywood, but this one hit hard. The Wheel of Time's third season was far and away the best yet, earning it rave reviews from critics, topping Amazon streaming charts in many different countries, and generating Emmy buzz. It seemed that the show had truly hit its stride, and shown that it had what it takes to finish adapting a story as massive and ambitious as Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time.
To have gotten this far into the story only to have Amazon reverse course stings, so it's no surprise that fans are already gearing up for the long fight ahead. Back when we were still waiting to hear whether the show would be renewed, the fandom similarly launched an appreciation-based campaign which resulted in more than 150,000 letters being sent to Amazon and Sony executives urging them to continue the story. Those efforts may not have been enough to sway the likes of Jeff Bezos and company, but the fans aren't about to let that stop them now.
SaveWOT.com has multiple ways for people to get involved in the effort to save the show, including signing a petition which has three main aims: "urging Amazon to reverse its decision, encouraging Sony to find a new home for the show, and raising awareness among other streaming platforms to pick up the show." Fans can also write open letters to the cast and crew to express support for the series, and submit videos talking about their love for the series. The idea is to create so much noise about The Wheel of Time and its cancellation that other streamers can't help but take notice, and one of them might decide it's a worthy investment to continue the show. These efforts are just getting started, so I imagine there will be much more to come. If you want to join that fight, head over to SaveWOT.com to learn more.
Could The Wheel of Time be picked up by another streamer?
The idea of a beloved television show getting saved by another network isn't unprecedented, though it is rare. The best example in genre television is The Expanse, which ran for three seasons on SyFy before it was canceled and subsequently picked up by, ironically, Amazon. It ran there for three more seasons before it ended its run in 2022.
Whether The Wheel of Time could similarly be saved is a complicated question. On the plus side, we have the fact that Prime Video doesn't own all the rights to the series. It was a co-production with Sony, who contracted with Amazon to actually produce the series. The exact nuances of the rights situation haven't been made completely clear to the public, but the rumbles I've heard are that it was Amazon who decided to pass on making more seasons, rather than Sony being unwilling to continue. If the legal stuff can be ironed out, it sounds like Sony may have the means and motivation to shop the series around.
Indeed, the day after the cancellation Sony Pictures Television released a clip of Rand undergoing his trial in Rhuidean, part of the best episode of the season. Perhaps they wanted to have that extra bit of footage publicly available for their shopping efforts? Or perhaps I'm just coping, whatever don't judge me.
The flip side of all this is that the television landscape is very, very different than when shows like The Wheel of Time were first greenlit. There's a general contraction going on in the industry right now, with streamers cutting budgets and tightening their belts after years of dumping truckloads of money at any idea they thought could grab a piece of that post-Game of Thrones gold rush. If The Wheel of Time had aired this same season a few years ago, there's little doubt it would have been renewed. Now, it feels like this latest boom of big budget fantasy shows is waning.
All that is aside from real-world things which could impact a show like The Wheel of Time, like the threat of Hollywood tariffs on foreign productions in the United States. The Wheel of Time is funded by American companies, but it is a global production by nature, filming in countries like the Czech Republic and South Africa with a cast and crew hailing from around the world. It's not clear how all of that reconciles at this point, but I'm sure the specter of these issues doesn't help matters.
If any streamer was to pick up The Wheel of Time, I'd hope for Apple TV+ or Netflix. Both have the deep pockets to front a series like The Wheel of Time, and are no strangers to big budget genre fare. Apple in particular has shown an appetite for developing shows for the long term, and has a keener eye for genre shows than some of its competitors with series like Foundation, Murderbot, Silo, and Severance. It doesn't yet have an epic fantasy show in its lineup. Could we interest you in The Wheel of Time?
The fight to save The Wheel of Time has begun. If you want to lend your sword, head over to SaveWOT.com to get involved.
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