The enormous success of Fourth Wing is leading its legions of fans on BookTok to wonder if Violet and Xaden will be up for a live-action adaptation soon.
Fourth Wing is the first book in Rebecca Yarros’ best-selling fantasy book series known as The Empyrean. The novel was picked up by book vloggers on TikTok almost immediately after coming out in early 2023, and has since turned into a sensational new YA fantasy story around the world. A second novel, titled Iron Flame, also came out in late 2023, cementing the series’ success and paving the path for not just a threequel (titled Onyx Storm and slated for release in 2025) but also a Hollywood adaptation.
But when can we expect that all but inevitable live-action take to come out? And is it going to be a movie or a television series?
Is there going to be a Fourth Wing movie?
Alas, there has been no word regarding a movie adaptation of Fourth Wing, but the good news is that Amazon MGM Studios has lisenced the book for a television adaptation. Yarros is planning to write five books in the Empyrean series, and since each entry is quite sizable in length, the only way to do it justice would be through a small screens adaptation. Liz Raposo will be executive producing the show alongside Yarros, who is going to be involved in a non-writing capacity.
Fourth Wing centers around an unlikely heroine named Violet Sorrengail. The story takes place in a fictional world and a fictional city called Navarre, which hosts a military school called Basgiath War College. Violet is the daughter of General Lilith Sorrengail, and has worked her entire life to become a scribe, but things go awry when her mother forces Violet to join the Rider Quadrant instead. Violet’s physical maladies put her in a dangerous situation, but the world of our heroine gets upended when she meets Xaden Riorson, the leader of an elite squad of dragon riders called Fourth Wing.
Here is the official tagline (per Variety) for the upcoming Amazon adaptation:
“Enter the brutal world of Basgiath War College where there is only one rule: Graduate or Die. Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail expected to live a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general― her tough-as-talons mother―has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. If the fire-breathing beasts don’t kill her, one of her fellow riders just might. Suspense, action, romance, and dragons blend together in a propulsive fantasy adventure from NYT bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.”
Since it’s only been a few months from the announcement, the Fourth Wing TV show must be in the early stages of pre-production, and it’ll no doubt be quite a while until we hear anything more about the adaptation.
