Amazon’s Prime Video is giving fantasy fans even more reasons to subscribe: Soon, an adaptation of Julie C. Dao’s Rise of the Empress book series will join The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time on the streaming service. The adaptation has a pretty incredible team behind the scenes: Two American Horror Story vets, Crystal Liu and James Wong, are set to serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. (Liu will write, Wong direct.) Executive producers on the series include Gemma Chan (The Creator), Viola Davis, Forest Whitaker, and Julie C. Dao herself.
Prime’s summary comes with a lot of Meaningful Capital Letters:
A Fantastical Ancient Asian Empire is on the verge of destruction, torn apart by insidious rivalry. The only hope: A marriage between the handsome Heir to the Throne and a Princess from one of its feuding Kingdoms. As the competition to win the Prince’s hand heats up, chaos reigns when a dazzling peasant girl named Xifeng is thrown into the romance wars by a vengeful sorceress. In this fairytale of love and power, will Xifeng be able to save not only herself…but the whole Empire?
The Rise of the Empress duology began with Forest of a Thousand Lanterns in 2017, and continued with Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix a year later. A spinoff novel, Song of the Crimson Flower, takes place eight years after the events of the other two books. Author Roshani Chokshi said of the first book, “Searing and intense, Dao’s debut is an outstanding character exploration of one of fairytales’ most enduring and enigmatic characters: the Evil Queen. Equal parts lush and devastating, this is a tale that will grab you by the throat.”
The series’ producers all issued statements on the adaptation; Viola Davis, Andrew Wang, and Julius Tennon from JuVee Productions said, “At JuVee, it is one of our missions to identify the stories that can transcend borders. … Julie C. Dao’s book series not only builds a fantastical world of opulence and mystery out of Asian history but centers a character that in her defiance to be what she is expected to be, finds the strength that may give her the power to change the world.”
No production schedule or premiere date has been announced.
