Is there any plan for a movie series—anything along that line—and if so, what is the progress on that, if any?
The year after my husband’s death, I signed a big, fat contract with Universal giving them the movie rights. They have the rights by contract to make a miniseries or movies of the Wheel of Time books, and they have seven years to get the first movie into theaters. And I’ve forgotten what the timing is on the miniseries. Somebody here in the room has seen a first draft of a movie script and said it is…“execrable” would perhaps be the correct word. Just no—no, no, no, no. I have not seen this, but the clock is ticking. I would…does anybody remember the Ralph Bakshi movie of Lord of the Rings?
Yeah…
Yeah, was that the pits or what? Just awful . And it didn’t kill the Lord of the Rings, because now there’s the wonderful Jackson. It may be that this will happen with the Wheel of Time. I don’t control it; I do have a little…. if they sat down to make a triple-X movie out of The Eye of the World , I think I would be able to stop them legally. I don’t have…I can’t say “You have just really messed up this character.” They would say, “Thank you, we’ve consulted you, now go away.” It’s pretty much how it works. The chances are that it may be shelved and never made at all under this contract; I get the rights back if they do that, after seven years…which is so peculiarly Biblical. (laughter) I think about the Pharaohs and the kine, and the lean kine and the fat kine, every time I say that. You know, why do they do that? They’re obsessed with [permits?] maybe.
So, chances are it will never be made—it will not be made under this contract. The next likely chance is that something awful will be made, and the third possibility is that they’ll do it right and something wonderful will happen. I think it’s about 50-50 that they’re gonna shelve it. It’s been very slow so far, and I don’t think they’ll make the deadline. But I hope they’re all sitting out there going very broody about the Game of Thrones . They should be, little dollar signs flicking through their eyeballs like saa . (laughter) Because this would be bigger, if they did it right. It would be wonderful if they did it right, but there’s no way to even expect that. The wisdom among writers and publishers is, “Oh, you’re offered money for a movie? Take the money and run, and never, never go to see what they do with it.” But of course I will. (laughter)
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