The Real Reason That Crazy Wheel of Time Pilot Was So Awful

Much as you might expect from an all-but-unannounced pilot running during the wee hours of the night, it was abysmal. The CGI during the opening exposition sequence recalls the opening to Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy run through a PlayStation 2; the performances are histrionic. No one but Wheel Of Time superfans would have any reason to be interested in this, and fewer still would come away hopeful for a full series. But quality aside, this was a stealth adaptation of one of the most beloved genre sagas of all time, running on an otherwise respected network—how the hell did it come to pass? The question has no easy answer, but here's everything we know about the production so far.

On Sunday afternoon, a Wheel Of Time fan noticed a blurb for the pilot appeared on his television's channel guide, and posted the find on the WoT subreddit, which sent others scurrying to check FX, IMDB, and other sources. Dragonmount, the online Wheel Of Time community, crashed as fans scrambled to find any available information. They didn't learn much at first; the cast included Billy Zane—no, sorry, Billy Freakin' Zane—and apparently would only adapt the six-page prologue to The Eye Of The World, the first novel.

As more facts came to light, it became clear that this was a rights issue, the television version of 1994's famously horrible Fantastic Four movie. At the time, producer Bernd Eichinger, who had optioned the comic book from Marvel for a paltry sum, found himself in a predicament: He had limited time left on his film option, and Marvel wouldn't allow an extension. Rather than let the rights revert to Marvel, Eichinger instead hired renowned low-budget director Roger Corman to produce a film in less than a month. It was never to be officially released; it was simply a means of fulfilling his option in order to maintain it for possible future films. ("They didn’t say I had to make a big movie," he famously said.)

Like that fiasco, Winter Dragon seems to have been a rare televised "ashcan copy"—a term that originated during the Golden Age of comic books to describe not-for-distribution works created solely for copyright-claim purposes. Following the trail led to some clues about the team behind Winter Dragon. Seda James (birth name James Brian Howell), who was credited as an executive producer, editor, and director on the pilot, tweeted on December 17 about booking a directing gig on December 17, and then wrapped production on February 4—including a single day in which they shot 22 script pages' worth of action (essentially an entire sitcom).

A behind-the-scenes Instagram from series co-star Max Ryan weren’t helpful in discerning anything other than costuming and makeup—but complicating matters further, Seda reportedly was involved in a fatal car accident the day after production concluded. Ryan posted another picture on Instagram from the memorial service.

On Monday morning after the telecast, questions still swirled. Jordan’s widow and editor Harriet McDougal Rigney issued a statement just before 11AM PST:

"This morning brought startling news. A "pilot" for a Wheel of Time series, the "pilot" being called Winter Dragon, had appeared at 1:30 in the morning, East Coast time, on FXX TV, a channel somewhere in the 700s (founded to concentrate on comedy, according to the Washington Post).
It was made without my knowledge or cooperation. I never saw the script. No one associated with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Rigney, was aware of this.
Bandersnatch has an existing contract with Universal Pictures that grants television rights to them until this Wednesday, February 11 – at which point these rights revert to Bandersnatch.
I see no mention of Universal in the "pilot". Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan’s estate, informed of this in any way.
I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence."

Apparently, the pilot was made without the knowledge—let alone permission—of Jordan’s estate. While Universal Pictures' deal expires on Wednesday, presumably only able to be extended with the successful production of a pilot, FXX is a subsidiary of Fox, which creates more confusion about the rights trail.

Red Eagle Entertainment, one of two production companies credited in the opening of the pilot, is well-known to Wheel Of Time fans, but not in a good way. In a blog post mere weeks before his death in 2007, Jordan lambasted Red Eagle and provided some details about the tumultuous working relationship regarding their adaptations of his work:

I hear things now and then floating out in the air. For instance, I hear that word was floating about ComicsCon [sic] in San Diego that I am displeased with Red Eagle. Too true. Too very true. In a few more months that last contract they have with anyone on God's green earth that so much as mentions my name will come to an end and we can see what happens after that. You see, among other things they forgot an old dictum of LBJ back when he was just a Congressman from Texas, when he famously, or infamously, said "Don't spit in the soup, boys. We all have to eat." Worse, Red Eagle though they could tell me they spit in the soup, or pee in it, if they wanted to and there wasn't anything I could do to stop them. You can't apologize your way out of that with me, not that they tried. There isn't enough money in the world to buy your way out of it with me. Not that they tried that either. So they get no further help from me. Once they are completely out of the picture, we'll see what happens.

The company’s website still touts a 2009 distribution agreement with EA to produce a series of video games—both standalone console titles and an MMORPG—based on Jordan’s books. To date, none of them have been delivered on any console or mobile platform. A 2012 Kickstarter campaign managed to raise only $3,000 of the $450,000 Red Eagle hoped for. (Emails and calls to Red Eagle were not returned by publication time.)

The other production company, Radar Pictures, appears the more reputable of the two, listing among its credits Revenge Of The Nerds, Three Men and a Baby, Jumanji, and the revered Shaq masterpiece Kazaam. Radar also has a past business relationship with Universal: the studio distributed Vin Diesel's Riddick films, which Radar produced.

FXX, when contacted by a comic-book site gave a demure response: "This was client-supplied programming. For further comment, please reach out to Red Eagle Entertainment." (The phrase "client-supplied" programming is generally used to designate infomercials or other similar material aired during timeslots that are sold by the network.) But Red Eagle CEO Rick Selvage made a bolder declaration. "We can’t talk about it right now," he said. "Additional announcements coming shortly, probably within the next few days. This video is a lead-in to a well-funded full series, with a tie in to Red Eagle’s mobile games."

It’s still unclear whether either company actually had the legal right to produce such a pilot, or whether securing the airtime on FXX successfully extended that contract. But any Game Of Thrones fans still salty about how long George R.R. Martin is taking with The Winds Of Winter should realize how good they have it. The Winter Dragon quagmire proves it could be much, much worse.