An Eragon TV show on Disney Plus? Christopher Paolini wants it to happen.

Fans are hoping to catch Disney’s attention.

 

Christopher Paolini’s dragon-riding tale captivated millions of young readers in the 2000s, and like many popular book franchises, it received a widescreen adaptation. But fans never felt like the Eragon movie did justice to the books. Now they’re campaigning for an Eragon TV show.

Paolini has given his seal of approval.

Update: Disney passes on ‘Eragon’ remake … for now

Fans from The MCAlagaesia Project, a team of gamers that is rebuilding the world of Eragon in Minecraft, kicked off a social media campaign on Sunday, June 20, in hopes of sending Disney a message: the Inheritance Cycle deserves another shot on the screen. Specifically, fans are hoping Disney will greenlight an Eragon TV series on Disney Plus.

“I’m pushing very hard and there are some movements online to do a tweetstorm or get a hashtag trending and see if we can get Disney’s attention,” Paolini said on the Flights Through Alagaësia podcast in May. “That stuff does work, you know, it really does work. It lets the studio know that there’s a fanbase, that they’re active, that they’re engaged and that they care about the material.”

The tweetstorm involved flooding Twitter with enthusiastic posts, highlighting the desire for a new adaptation. Participants tagged Disney in their tweets while using the hashtag #EragonRemake. A website was built to coordinate the effort. The campaign was originally slated to begin on Saturday, June 19, but was postponed so as to not coincide with Juneteenth.

By Sunday afternoon, the hashtag had reached the number two spot on Twitter’s trending queue in the United States.

In the podcast interview, Paolini mentioned that he would like to write the screenplay or at least fill an executive producer role, citing the successes of franchises like Twilight, Hunger Games and Harry Potter.

“Making sure that it was as true as possible to the material,” he added. “You need to capture the feel of the material — the feel that is the reason people love the material in the first place. That’s what great adaptations do.”

So why Disney Plus?

The Inheritance Cycle has a lot in common with Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. Both books received less-than-stellar movie adaptations from 21st Century Fox. However, Disney purchased the studio in a major deal in 2019, acquiring Fox’s massive backlog in the process. After a social media campaign for Disney to pick up Percy Jackson, Rick Riordan is now hard at work on adapting his books for television.

Paolini and his fanbase are hoping for the same opportunity.

Saul Marquez founded Bookstacked in 2014 and serves as the site's Editor-in-Chief. He primarily covers news for Bookstacked. He also co-hosts Bookmarked: A YA Book Podcast.

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