When big-name adaptations stall out, there isn’t always an announcement; often, they just… never happen. But Hulu’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, according to Variety, is “officially scrapped.”
The adaptation of Sarah J. Maas’s massively popular series about a young woman who finds herself in a magical land among the very sexy fae was announced in 2021. Very few other details were made public other than that Maas and Ronald D. Moore (Outlander) would be writing and executive producing the series.
Last year, TV Line reported that the series was no longer in development. Variety also reported this news, then corrected its own news piece to say “Variety has now been told that technically the show is still in development at Hulu. But that’s semantics, as it is believed to no longer be in active development.” Whatever its chaotic state was at that point, it’s now officially not happening.
This is the second of Maas’s series to fail to launch at Hulu. In 2018, an adaptation of her first series, Throne of Glass, was announced at Hulu; it was to be called Queen of Shadows, after the fourth book in that series, and had an interesting creative team. That story—about a young assassin who is actually Fae royalty—seemed like the likelier tale to adapt in a post-Game of Thrones world, but like A Court of Thorns and Roses (aka ACOTAR), it has a massive cast, varied fantastical locations, and some epic battle scenes that would not be inexpensive to produce.
Variety notes that Disney’s 20th Television has the rights to the Court series through late summer, and that Maas “is looking to take the TV adaptation rights for ‘ACOTAR’ out to a different studio and platform once the option has expired at Disney.” So all hope isn’t quite lost.
