Prime Video’s Most Exciting Upcoming Fantasy Show Could Be the One That Finally Works

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a potentially $1 billion bet (including $250m for the rights) that hasn’t yet paid off. The show has divided fans, and saw a major dropin viewership in Season 2, though it has been renewed for a third season and should at least get to see out its five-season plan. That’s more than can be said for some of its other efforts: The Wheel of Time was cancelled after three seasons, despite several more books to adapt; Carnival Row ended after just two seasons, and while it was intended to cause a big splash, it barely made a ripple. Still, Prime Video is undeterred, and could finally get things right with one series: Fourth Wing.

Why Fourth Wing Should Be A Major Fantasy Hit For Prime Video

Based on Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean Series, or Fourth Wing books, the story takes place in a fictional world at Basgiath College, where students become Scribes, Infantry, Healers, or, most exciting (and dangerous) of all, (dragon) Riders. The protagonist is Violet Sorrengail, one of said Riders, who must overcome huge odds in a bid for survival, while uncovering dark secrets that threaten the fate of the entire world.

Amazon’s Fourth Wing show has a few advantages that could turn it into the fantasy hit it’s been looking for, not least in terms of buzz. Romantasy may not be everyone’s cup of tea as far as sub-genres go, but it is a big, booming business. That’s largely been evidenced on social media, where TikTok’s #BookTok has generated hundreds of billions of views, but it translates to sales as well. The romantasy genre accounted for around 30 million print sales in 2024, per The New York Times, up 50% over the previous year. All of Yarros’ Empyrean books have been best-sellers, and the most recent, 2025’s Onyx Storm, became the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years.

Simply put: the hype is real and, so far, seems to be lasting. Streamers are absolutely taking note, too: Prime Video is also developing Powerless, based on another of the genre’s best-sellers; Netflix won a bidding war that went into seven-figures for the rights to Quicksilver; Hulu tried for years to adapt one of the genre’s biggest works, A Court of Thorns and Roses, but wasn’t able to make it work. But even among all of those, the Fourth Wing books have the mix of built-in audience, cultural awareness, and some wider appeal – i.e. dragons and violence – to make the TV series a massive hit.

Yarros has already been closely involved in developing the show, the kind of relationship that was lacking in something like The Wheel of Time, where author Brandon Sanderson wasn’t directly involved in the series. Unlike The Rings of Power, there’s a much more direct source material to adapt. And Yarros has also been very insistent that the show won’t ever overtake the books and, given her impressive writing pace, there’s no reason to doubt it, avoiding a problem that hurt Game of Thrones.

Of course, there will still be challenges, especially given the show is still in the earlier stages of development. Getting the cast right will be essential, and the series also won’t come cheap for Amazon. There are dozens of dragons in the story, for starters, of many different colors and designs, and they’re essential to the story. The CGI for those alone is going to be hefty, and is perhaps the biggest obstacle to overcome. At the same time, those dragons are also part of what makes it so exciting, as even Thrones and House of the Dragon don’t use the creatures in the same way we see here. If it can get that right, then there’s a lot going for it to succeed, especially in ways other Prime Video series have failed.

Fourth Wing is currently in development at Prime Video, but does not yet have a cast or release date.

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