7 Potential Successors to ‘Game of Thrones’ (PHOTOS)
Lord of the Rings
Amazon reportedly paid $250 million for the rights to this J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy series and budgeted $500 million to produce a TV series set before Fellowship of the Ring. Plus, Amazon Studios is in talks with Peter Jackson — who directed the blockbuster LOTR and Hobbit trilogies — to get him involved in the series and maybe even to use his New Zealand sets.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Netflix nabbed the rights to all seven books in this series by C.S. Lewis, a story in which four children are transported to a fantasy world and must fight to restore peace in the kingdom. The streaming service is planning both movies and TV movies set in the world of Narnia.
The Wheel of Time
Amazon gave a series order to an adaptation of this Robert Jordan series — a story in which only women are magical, with a heroine on a quest to find the powerful being who will either save the world or destroy it. Incidentally, a low-budget half-hour pilot based on The Wheel of Time — and starring Billy Zane — aired on FXX in the wee hours one night in February 2015 just so a production company could hang on to the rights.
The Witcher
Henry Cavill is giving up Superman’s cape and starring in a Netflix adaptation of this Andrzej Sapkowski short story collection — a story of a monster-hunter, a sorceress, and a princess contending with the monstrosities of humanity. The best-selling books also inspired a hit video game series.
Lazarus
Amazon is also developing a TV series based on this Greg Rucka-Michael Lark comic book series, a tale of an alternative near-future reality in which the world has been divvied up among 16 rival families, each of whom has a one-person security detail known as “Lazarus”
Cleopatra
Amazon is also developing a revisionist drama series about this famed queen — a story described as “The Godfather in ancient Egypt,” per Deadline — from a trio of Black Sails executive producers.
Game of Thrones spinoff(s)
All of that said, Game of Thrones’ heir apparent is the “successor show” HBO has already greenlit for 2020. The new series will be set in the “Age of Heroes,” a bleak era some 10,000 years before the time of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. Plus, HBO has solicited scripts for multiple GOT spinoffs, so who knows how much longer we’ll stay in Westeros!
When it comes to Game of Thrones, the thirst is real.
The dragon-and-doom fantasy has indeed been fantastic for HBO — gaining viewers each season so far and earning a record number of Emmy nominations — and it’s so obvious the other TV networks covet that level of success. Just look at the number of Thrones clones that have come and gone: Netflix’s Marco Polo, MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles, ABC’s Of Kings and Prophets, and FOX’s never-aired Hieroglyph.
And there are many more to come, especially as GOT enters its final season. Click through the gallery above for seven upcoming TV series giving us serious Thrones vibes.
