If there is a center to the whirlwind world of fantasy romance, it’s Sarah J. Mass’ book series, A Court of Thrones and Roses. Also referred to as ACOTAR, the steamy series takes inspiration from fables and fairy tales.
Since young Feyre was drawn into the fae world of Prythian, readers have been transfixed by her story. The first ACOTAR book takes heavily from the well-known story of Beauty and the Beast, including wolves and a poor provincial town. Feyre’s world changes forever after she kills a fae wolf, mistaking it for one of the normal varieties. This animal was the friend of a faerie High Lord, Tamlin, and he demands justice. As payment, Tamlin takes Feyre away to the land of faeries to live with him forever.
The two fall in love naturally, but not all is as it seems. Feyre gets drawn into an ancient war that makes her romance all the more complicated. Further books put Feyre in the middle of Tamlin and Rhysand — yet another High Lord — in a love triangle. An unavoidable trope in the world of romances, this has furthered the success and popularity of the books. Fans thirst for these romantic machinations and hope one day they’ll see them in live action.
Is there A Court of Thornes and Roses movie in the works?
ACOTAR may be famous for its steamy and scintillating scenes, but it wouldn’t be the first time that something like that has made it to the big screen. We may prefer to forget it, but 50 Shades of Grey was a popular franchise once upon a time. But while ACOTAR has the same popularity, the film adaptation is not in the books for this set of novels. As with any fantasy story, the world of Prythian is chock full of lore and riddles to uncover and spans 6 books. A film franchise may not be the best medium for this type of content.
With an abundance of streaming platforms, television may be the better option. And in fact, that is what creatives decided. Instead of a film adaptation, ACOTAR was optioned for a television series, helmed by celebrated showrunner, Ronald D. Moore. Moore’s most significant claim to fame was his reboot of the classic sci-fi series, Battlestar Galactica. Responsible for one of the most iconic sci-fi characters, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Katee Sackhoff), Moore’s work will be remembered for a long time.
More to the point, he has experience bringing a popular world from book form to the small screen. He led the show, Outlander, for Starz, a fantastical series in its own right, full of romance and time travel. If anyone could successfully adapt Mass’ world, it’s this showrunner.
What’s the status of the ACOTAR series?
News of the ACOTAR adaptation occurred as early as 2021. Maas was ecstatic to share the news that she would work on the new series with Moore. The two would be penning the pilot together for a series on Hulu. However, since then, information has not been aplenty. Admittedly, it takes a long time to produce a series, particularly one that would depend on so many special effects. The dual Hollywood strike may have also contributed to the delay in any news.
As it turned out, something else was going on behind the scenes. After years of development. TVLine initially reported that the series was dead at the platform. Many sources seemed to confirm this, though it did not appear that ACOTAR was landing on any other streaming service. That’s when fans were shocked by another surprising reveal. Sources assured Entertainment Weekly that the prolific book series wasn’t officially canceled. While information on the particulars is scarce, Hulu claims that ACOTAR is still in development. Hulu chief Craig Erwich indicated that the series was still a priority but admitted there was no other news, per Variety. Moore and Maas have similarly been quiet about the future of the series.
Priorities could have been shuffled, as often happens in these situations. The last time a Hollywood strike occurred in 2007, Breaking Bad seemed to be on the chopping block. But with the help of streaming, it became one of the most widely watched shows of its time. Unfortunately for now, we will have to wait to see how this series pans out. But with ACOTAR reaching phenomenon-level status, it will surely land somewhere in the future.
