8 Most Exciting Fantasy TV Shows Currently In Development

Magic: The Gathering

Since its release in 1993, Magic: The Gathering has attracted a passionate fanbase. While the game is superficially similar to Dungeons and Dragons in terms of theme, it is a game centered on cards rather than the traditional boards of Dungeons and Dragons, and with extremely complex rules. An entire franchise has built up around the games, with video games, comics, and a canceled movie, so it felt like only a matter of time before a proposed adaptation made it to the screen.

Fantasy has not always done well on Netflix, with the platform prematurely canceling some shows while drastically deviating from the source material of others. However, if done right, Netflix's Magic: the Gathering could outshine The Witcher. Following on from the success of Arcane, the Magic: The Gathering adaptation is also going to be an animated series. With so much source material available to adapt, the series could potentially learn from successful game adaptations like Arcane and Fallout, which conveyed the spirit of the games rather than a specific story.

The Dark Tower

Adaptations of Stephen King's books have often been varied, with It: Welcome to Derry bringing the horror of the rebooted movies to the TV, while The Mist moved away from its monsters and failed to hit the mark with fans. With his eight-book series, The Dark Tower, often being considered some of his best work, an adaptation must be as faithful as possible to both the story and its tone. Fortunately for the upcoming adaptation, Mike Flanagan's Dark Tower script reportedly impressed Stephen King himself.

Despite the presence of Idris Elba, the movie adaptation was a staggering flop, earning a 44% positive Rotten Tomatoes score from audiences, while critics rated it just 16% positive. When the series was picked up by Amazon Prime, only the pilot episode was produced before the platform canceled it. The standards are high considering the success of other major fantasy TV shows, and Flanagan is determined to make The Dark Tower a success, telling Deadline, “We can’t let that be the final word. We really can’t."

Dungeon Crawler Carl

The bestselling literary role-playing game book with an extremely distinctive hero, Dungeon Crawler Carl, is one of the most creative projects in recent years. After an alien corporation strips Earth of its resources, Carl is one of the last survivors, and must compete in an intergalactic reality TV show accompanied by his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut. The quotable tagline "the apocalypse will be televised" and details like his signature heart-patterned boxer shorts instantly got the book a cult following.

Now, Dungeon Crawler Carl is becoming a live-action TV series from Seth McFarlane, with Christopher Yost (Thor: Ragnarok and The Mandalorian) set to write it. In an interview with Variety, author Matt Dinniman revealed that it had not yet been decided whether the upcoming TV adaptation would be animated or live-action. Both have merits, and Dinniman has reassured readers that "It’s all gonna hinge on what it looks like," trusting that the studio team knows what they are doing.

Fourth Wing

Fourth Wing is the first book in Rebecca Yarros' Empyrean series, and it combines some of the most popular elements in typical fantasy stories to create a fantasy romance that brings something new to the genre. Violet has trained to be a scribe all her life, but when she is sent to the hard-hitting Basgiath War College, she must train to become a dragon rider instead, passing a series of dangerous challenges while negotiating an even more dangerous romance.

The books are full of vivid scenes that would put a successful TV adaptation on the same level as Game of Thrones, and the Fourth Wing TV series has been confirmed for Prime Video. This is exciting news, as Prime Video has been responsible for some of the most visually impressive TV shows in recent years. These include The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time. Prime Video has been investing in genre TV shows and there are few better books to adapt than the Empyrean series, which has become one of the fastest-selling franchises of the 21st century.

God Of War

The God of War TV show adaptation has already made an impression by casting Ryan Hurst as the lead character, Kratos. As Hurst has already won a BAFTA award for playing the character in God of War Ragnarök, this appeared to reassure fans of the video game that the series would respect the source material. However, the first image of Kratos from God of War has been divisive, with game fans pointing out that it looks staged, with the background unnaturally bright green, looking like a cosplay rather than an immersive world.

First-look images do not always depict the finished product accurately, with Hurst using his Instagram stories to address the situation, stating cryptically, "Don't believe everything you see on the internet, kids." Otherwise, the show is setting up to be strong, with the cast of God of War made up of established actors, some new faces, as well as some familar voices, with more actors from the video games reprising their roles in live-action.

The Stormlight Archive

Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive is a fantasy epic in progress, with five books and two novellas currently released and a further ten novels planned. While another of his fantasy sagas, Mistborn, is currently being adapted as a movie, Apple TV looks set to adapt The Stormlight Archive, which is set on a hurricane-ravaged land named Roshar, in which different kinds of storms shape the landscape and the way of life. The saga follows several characters as they start to unlock an ancient kind of magic.

Seeing the environment and its immense and powerful storms brought to the screen could be the ideal beginning of a new long-running high-budget fantasy TV show. It is often seen as taboo to compare a fantasy saga to Tolkien's work, but The Stormlight Archive is already being compared to The Rings of Power, and could be a better choice for a TV show, as it is a character-driven story rather than a history.

Warhammer 40,000

It is a well publicized fact that Henry Cavill is a fan of the fantasy genre, which includes the Warhammer games. He is known for being committed to the creative vision of the projects he takes on, even leaving The Witcher due to creative differences after landing his ideal role as a fan of the original books and games. This already bodes well for his adaptation of the Warhammer 40,000 games, which he is executive producing and reportedly starring in.

So far, details of Henry Cavill's Warhammer TV show are scarce, and he can take his pick of the franchise's timelines and settings, but he has dropped one small hint. In 2022, he announced in an Instagram post that the series would be live-action, alongside a new version of the Imperium of Mankind symbol, which potentially implies that the series will take place in a post-Heresy world after the death of a major leader.

Ninth House

Prime Video is reportedly developing Ninth House, the book that begins Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern trilogy, which is expected to end with the final book later this year. The story follows the titular Alex, who has the ability to see ghosts. Despite dropping out of high school, she is offered a full scholarship to Yale, where she monitors its secret societies and their occult activities after a girl is murdered. After the success of shows like The Magicians, it is not surprising that Ninth House is finally being adapted for the screen, especially after being commended by other authors.

Stephen King praised Ninth House, calling it "the best fantasy novel I've read in years" for its realistic and relatable characters, as well as its many twists and turns. That said, despite a very promising start and with themes that would appeal to fans of TV shows from The Magicians to Gossip Girl, Ninth House appears to be stuck in development hell, and only time will tell if it eventually gets the adaptation that it deserves.

Source: Deadline, Variety