The Graveyard Book was recently announced as the subject of a Disney film adaptation, and now it appears that the company will be adapting another classic children’s book. Variety reports that a streaming adaptation of Christopher Paolini’s novel Eragon is now in the works. A four-book series named “The Inheritance Cycle” was launched with the release of Eragon in 2002. These books will serve as the inspiration for the next television series. In a similar way to what Disney+ is doing with Rick Riordan and the Percy Jackson books, Paolini has been brought on board as a co-writer and co-showrunner.
As this will be Paolini’s first step into television writing, the studio is looking for a second writer and showrunner to collaborate with him. Co-Lab 21 and 20th Television will create the series, which will be executive produced by Bert Salke. Additional information is lacking at this moment. Percy Jackson and the Olympians may or may not follow in the footsteps of Percy Jackson and the Olympians by adapting one novel every season.
Following Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the Lemony Snicket book series, this decision by Disney+ will continue the trend of famous children’s novels being adapted for streaming. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the upcoming series based on The Spiderwick Chronicles and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which are set to launch on Disney+ in 2024, are just a few of the YA book-to-screen adaptations already in the works for Disney+. Before, there was an Eragon film adaptation. Jeremy Irons, Garrett Hedlund, and John Malkovich round out the cast of 20th Century Fox’s 2006 film version of the novel Eragon, which stars Ed Speelers as the title character. Even though it was eagerly anticipated by lovers of the novels, the film received poor reviews and no plans for a sequel.
The #EragonRemake trended on Twitter in 2021, fueling anticipation for a fresh adaptation. “A decent Eragon adaptation” is what Paolini himself is pushing fans to tweet about. The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, a spin-off book from Paolini’s Eragon world, was released in 2018. For the first time, he published a science fiction novel, titled “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars,” in 2020. During the time Eragon was released, Paolini was only eighteen years old, making him the youngest author of a popular series per Guinness World Records. While searching for a strange dragon egg in the mountains of his home town, Eragon discovers a dragon and must leave in order to preserve it from the terrible ruler.