Back in 2020, streaming service Peacock announced that it had begun development on a television series based on The Green Bone Saga, the crime family fantasy book series by Fonda Lee. Alas, it was not to be; in 2022, Lee announced that Peacock had halted development on the series. I'm still mad about it, because The Green Bone Saga is an amazing book series that is perfect for television, and it baffles me that some studio or other hasn't snatched it up yet.
If you're not familiar with The Green Bone Saga, congratulations, you probably just discovered some of your new favorite books. Primarily set on the island of Kekon, The Green Bone Saga introduced readers to a world where rival crime family clans vied for power and control of magical jade, which is used to imbue warriors with powerful abilities like super strength and agility. Think one part magical realism, one part crime drama like The Godfather, and one part Asian-inspired martial arts saga, and you have the basic idea of what The Green Bone Saga's all about.
The first novel, Jade City, follows the three sibling heirs to the Kaul family's No Peak Clan as they try to stake their claim on Kekon's criminal underworld while fighting off the forces of the notorious Ayt Madashi, the infamous head of the rival Mountain Clan. The second, Jade War, sees the fight for control of jade spread beyond the borders of Kekon, as other nations set their eyes on the rare mineral which can only be found there. The final book in the trilogy, Jade Legacy, traces this conflict through the years, closing out the story as the aging heads of the No Peak and the Mountain clans try to secure their holdings for the next generation.
While we don't have a television show yet for Jade City, artifacts remain from the years that Peacock spent developing it. Recently, Lee shared a sizzle reel on Twitter/X, which is essentially a trailer using bits from other movies in order to give the production team and studio execs an idea of what the series would be like. And after watching it...yeah, I'm still mad we don't have this show. You can check it out above.
"A peek into what could have been," Lee wrote. "This was the sizzle reel that screenwriter Dave Kalstein made for the Jade City TV show back when it was in development at Peacock years ago. Imagine my surprise when it popped up in my YouTube recs. I still love it."
Could the @binding_broken editions of the Green Bone Saga possibly be any cooler?? Beyond grateful to art director @PetrikReads and artists @VargasNi and @charisloke for their vision. Can't wait to see this sub lighting up shelves 🔥 https://t.co/gsla2Jf8Re
— Fonda Lee **news and updates** (@FondaJLee) June 19, 2024
Dear HBO: for the love of all that is holy, adapt The Green Bone Saga
Alright, now that you've watched the sizzle reel and been wowed by how a Green Bone show might have depicted its epic fights and tense criminal dealings, it's time for me to rant about why it's so baffling that studios haven't picked this thing up yet. Ever since Game of Thrones ended, there's been a gold rush as Hollywood has tried to imitate its success by gobbling up fantasy and sci-fi IPs left and right. Some of them have turned out pretty great; others, not so much.
Now, it feels an awful lot like we're starting to see that bubble burst, as budgets have ballooned to ridiculous amounts and the wait time between new seasons has become at least two years on average. The one thing that a lot of the big fantasy shows like House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power have in common is that they're big flashy spectacles that are immensely ambitious to produce.
A Jade City series would also be ambitious...but since it's a grounded, realistic crime drama, it means that there's a lot of potential for it to not just be a colossal money sink in the way that a show which features giant fire-breathing dragons or ents might be. There are fights in The Green Bone Saga, but no massive battles in the vein of a medieval fantasy; a lot of the action could revolve around good old martial arts choreography enhanced with special effects. But at its heart, the family drama is what carries The Green Bone Saga and makes it as good as it is, and I think that's exactly the sort of thing which would make it translate to television without bankrupting the studios. Think about a show living somewhere in the space between Warrior and The Penguin. That's the sort of series The Green Bone Saga could be, and it would be amazing.
As cool as that Peacock sizzle reel is, the studio that always comes to mind for me when I think about Jade City is HBO, probably because they're the home of prestige crime family dramas like The Sopranos. Of all the studios making these kinds of shows, Jade City feels the most on brand for HBO, and like the sort of series they would absolutely knock out of the park. Hopefully, someone at the studio realizes it at some point or another, so I can stop bringing it up every single time we get into discussions on Take the Black about book series which haven't been adapted yet but deserve the small screen treatment.
Until then, there's always the books! The Green Bone Saga is complete, which means you can devour the fully story anytime you wish. If you're into fantasy books, I highly recommend it. The ebook of the first novel in the series is even on sale this week!
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