Fantasy fans who have never heard of Fourth Wing have a huge knowledge gap. Everyone else has been waiting for the book phenomenon to be filmed as an Amazon series.
One of the great fantasy phenomena of the present is called Fourth Wing. The book sensation includes magical powers and fierce battles, a school and lots of dragon riders: inside and is to be filmed by Amazon Prime as a series in the future. We’ll explain what’s behind the worldwide hit.
Fourth Wing: A fantasy book that became a phenomenon
In May 2023, a fantasy story called Fourth Wing was published and made waves in no time. The novel owed its great popularity not least to its popularity on the social media platform TikTok, where the reading Booktok community made the book a viral sensation that soon spilled over into other literary circles.
US author Rebecca Yarros had previously made a name for herself with romance novels, but her first fantasy book was a global hit, with over 2 million copies sold in its first six months (according to the NYT ). Three novels in the so-called “Empyrean” saga have since been published, translated into over 40 languages and continuously on the renowned New York Times bestseller list.
What is Fourth Wing about?
Under the motto ‘Graduate or die?’ (Graduate or die), Fourth Wing introduces its fantasy story: 20-year-old general’s daughter Violet Sorrengail actually wanted to dedicate her life to studying books, but is surprisingly sent to Basgiath War College by her mother. The brutal selection process for the war college to become a dragon rider is only survived by the strongest and most ruthless, with over half of the prospective cadets dying.
Violet finds friends, but also enemies in the halls of the building. Her oldest friend Dain Aetos worries about her, especially after the shadowy squadron leader Xaden Riorson never lets her out of his sight. Can Violet win a dragon and magical powers before her competitors eliminate her? Or does the kingdom of Navarre have much bigger problems when war threatens with neighboring Poromiel?
Hunger Games-Hogwarts meets Game of Thrones: Why is Fourth Wing so popular?
Fourth Wing can be described as magical, brutal and sexy. Even though the story stands on its own, it features many fantasy elements that have already made other books successful: a magical school like in Harry Potter, the struggle for survival of young people like in The Hunger Games and intrigue and sex like in Game of Thrones.
The strong-willed heroine, despite physical limitations, also contributes to the popularity: Violet suffers from a chronic disease of overstretched joints, which often causes her pain. Yarros confirmed to Today that this is the rare disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), from which the writer also suffers herself.
Due to the additional romance focus in the fantasy story, Fourth Wing, as “Romantasy”, is not least supported by a large female readership. The book is also often classified as “Dark Academia”. With its explicit erotic scenes, the series belongs more to adult fantasy entertainment than to Young Adult.
Amazon is filming Fourth Wing as a fantasy series
In October 2023, the year Fourth Wing became a literary fantasy phenomenon and was published, Amazon secured the rights to a film adaptation of the hit novel. Michael B. Jordan’s production company Outlier Society, along with Liz Pelletier, Elizabeth Raposo and author Rebecca Yarros, came on board as executive producers. However, the adaptation was then silent for several months.
It was not until July 2024 that it was finally announced that the series had reached its next milestone: Fourth Wing had signed Moira Walley-Beckett as showrunner, who had won three Emmys for her work on Breaking Bad, among other things, and had created the Netflix series Anne with an E.
When does Fourth Wing start on Amazon Prime?
It will still take a while before the series is completed, as the scripts for several episodes are currently being written. So far, only rumors are circulating in the search for the perfect cast, such as the name of actor Josh Heuston (as Xaden).
This will be followed by the shooting of Fourth Wing and the long, effects-heavy post-production (with double-digit numbers of dragons to be animated). So we don’t expect the series to start before 2026/27.
