<em>Fourth Wing</em>: What We Know So Far About the Television Adaptation

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First, Jeff Bezos wanted the hobbits; now, he’s come for the dragons. A massive New York Times bestseller, Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy sensation Fourth Wing—in which the main characters ride dragons, and also each other—is getting the Amazon treatment with a buzzy Prime Video television adaptation.

If you aren’t yet all too familiar with the adventures of Violet Sorrengail and her angry-and-ripped boyfriend Xaden, then here’s a quick overview of what will be at stake in the TV show: In Yarros’s universe, there are dragons, and those dragons meet their riders at an elite school known as Basgiath War College. There, Violet—small, underestimated, and with a chronic condition similar to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome—eschews what she thought would be a quiet life as a scribe for a chance to spar alongside other riders and bond with not one but two dragons. She also meets the traitorous (read: hot) Xaden Riorson, a wingleader already bonded to the dragon Sgaeyl, as he helps train Violet for dragonback, and for the war threatening their homeland of Navarre.

Just how closely Bezos and Co. will stick to the beloved (or overrated, depending on whom you’re asking) source material remains to be seen. The most pressing question, in yours truly’s opinion: Who will voice my personal favorite character, Violet’s sassy dragon Tairn? (And yes, the dragons talk! Sort of!)

Yarros herself likely won’t be giving any answers soon. The author currently remains tight-lipped re: any adaptation insights. “I’m so new to this industry. I will Tom Holland it,” she joked to ELLE in a January 2025 interview, wary of dropping potential spoilers.

Yes! In an Amazon presentation on May 11, 2026, Michael B. Jordan, who is producing the project, confirmed that the books received a series order at Prime Video, with executive producer Lisa Joy set to direct the first episode. Yarros and Meredith Averill (Wednesday) will work as the showrunner and executive producer.

“This project required the right creative partner,” he said, before bringing Joy onstage during the event, adding that “we’re building a cinematic world” with the goal “to deliver the series this fandom deserves.”

, Jordan and the team plan “to adapt the rest of the novels over multiple seasons. The Empyrean series has been conceived to consist of five books, with Fourth Wing (2023), Iron Flame (2023), and Onyx Storm (2025) as the first three titles.”

“Rebecca’s books have become one of the fastest-selling franchises of the 21st century, with a fandom so passionate, so devoted, they don’t just read these books, they live in them, and it’s because Fourth Wing is everything at once,” Averill said during the event. “The emotional stakes are sky high, the battles are epic, power dynamics are thrilling, and underneath it is so much humor and heart and a romance that will consume you.”

Prime Video has yet to announce a filming date, or a release date. Jordan, whose Outlier Society is producing Fourth Wing for Amazon MGM Studios, said in a January 2026 interview with Deadline that the adaptation is “coming.”

“We are making sure that this is going to be a exciting show that delivers on all of the things the fans want and some of the things that they won’t be expecting either,” Jordan said. “But trust me, I know how beloved this franchise IP is and we’re diligently…We’re in the lab; we’re cooking up. We got it. It’s coming. It’s early stages, but I feel how much people care about this one. It’s not lost on us.”

In a previous July 2025 interview between Deadline and Vernon Sanders, head of TV at Prime Video, Sanders shared the following vague but encouraging tidbit: “We’re excited about our adaptation of Fourth Wing, which we’re really working hard at.”

Sanders, like Jordan, also promised that Prime Video would honor readers’ sky-high expectations for the fantasy adaptation. “We love our relationship with Rebecca Yarros, who has been incredible, and we’re going to get this one right,” he said. “So that would be my promise to the fans.”

Fourth Wing will be a venture shared between Amazon MGM Studios, Kilter Films, Premediated Productions, and Jordan’s Outlier Society. Averill will serve as showrunner. Lisa Joy (Westworld, Fallout), who is also an executive producer, will direct the first episode.

Previously, Breaking Bad and Anne With an E writer and creator Moira Walley-Beckett was picked as showrunner, but she later dropped out. Deadline also reported that Agatha All Along and WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer was in talks to take over the project, but ultimately the role went to Averill.

We don’t have any idea just yet. But Yarros has made one promise so far: Xaden will be played by a person of color.

When asked about her casting dreams—and her thoughts on fan art depicting Xaden as white, despite Yarros describing him as having “warm tawny skin” in the books—the author told Varietyin November 2023, “We’re just going to say he’s POC; we’re just going to leave it at that. I didn’t rise to the bait of a lot of those posts, which I think probably got me some flack, but I knew we were already in development for TV, and I want to make sure that role is open to as much diversity as possible. So I was never going to give the readers my vision because I know that once you give the readers your vision, that’s what they’re gonna stick to. And I wanted to make sure we left it open to as much diversity as possible.”

In the same interview, she added, “Outlier is such a great production company and they have a wonderful diversity and inclusion rider, one of the first companies to have them, which is why I was so joyful, because I knew they would respect the diversity of cast.”

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