With Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy finished and Game Of Thrones unlikely to head to cinema screens any time soon, studios are naturally looking for fantasy source material to fuel the next big franchise. Lionsgate thinks it might be on to a winner, securing a big deal for Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle series{
Rothfuss’ series, which kicked off in 2007, includes an anchor trilogy (with the third book likely next year) and three novellas set in the same world. The focus is told in three time streams: the present, in which the protagonist, Kvothe, is dictating his life’s story to a historian of sorts; the past, a first-person account of Kvothe’s life, and lastly, in chronologically cloudy parables and stories peppered throughout the books. It’s full of clever narrative tricks and meta subplots, and studios have been circling for a while, not least after Rothfuss took several meetings at the San Diego Comic-Con this summer. At one point, Fox Television was going to produce a series based on the books, but now Lionsgate and producer Robert Lawrence have much more expansive plans across different forms of media.
“Honestly, I've never been very interested in a straight-up movie deal,” Rothfuss says in a statement carried by The Hollywood Reporter. “But Lionsgate was willing to work out something different, a multi-platform deal where they develop the films, TV series, and games simultaneously. That will give us the screen time to develop the characters and show off the world. What's more, through this whole process, they've treated me with amazing respect. I never thought a studio would approach me as a creative partner who understands how stories work." Given that his books sell almost as well as George RR Martin’s, we can see why the studio was interested.