Next huge fantasy TV series adaptation based on beloved book series gets major update

Eragon fans, rejoice! The upcoming live-action series based on the beloved fantasy novel has just had a major update.

Christopher Paolini's story about a farm boy who stumbles across a dragon egg has secured its showrunners - Todd Harthan and Todd Helbing.

Harthan has previously worked on series including High Potential, Crossover, and The Company You Keep, meanwhile Helbing previously served as an executive producer on Superman & Lois and The Flash.

Harthan is also set as a co-creator on the show alongside author Paolini. Marc Webb will serve as an executive producer, alongside Rachel Moore.

It was first announced that an Eragon series was in development in 2022. In 2006, the novel was adapted into a feature film, which massively divided fans.

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com in 2023, Paolini opened up about how the series will be different from the film.

"Some of my fans are going to hate for me to say this, but the original film is not really a bad film. But where it fails is it's not a great adaptation, and that's ultimately the problem," he told us.

"In a new adaptation I want - I mean, this is pie in the sky dreaming, of course - but I would want to capture the feel of the characters, the emotion of the story and the grandeur of the locations, something that I think the original film really fell down on, as it stripped out a lot of the elements that actually made Eragon unique, which is problematic given that since this is an archetypal hero's story, there are a lot of familiar elements."

Paolini added: "You need to embrace the things that do make it special. One very small example, I say small but it's actually large, is with locations. Eragon and his companions end up travelling to a place where [there are] these absolutely gigantic, staggeringly large mountains, which are about 10 miles high.

"And there's magical reasons for that in the world. I know that can't happen in the real world but visually, it's a stunning thing to be able to show and to have your characters in this amazing location.

"They just completely eliminated that from the movie, as well as the fact if you watch the film, you would never guess that there were supposed to be elves and dwarves in the world, the characters who are elves and dwarves are just kind of there, but have no distinguishing characteristics that would allow you to identify them as such. So, for all of those things, I think embracing what the book is and what the world is and really going hard for that."

No doubt fans will be keeping a close eye on the series as more developments emerge.

Eragon (2006) is currently available to stream on Disney Plus.

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