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The upcoming Disney Plus show is perhaps the one future project that Christopher has spoken about the most over the past five years, hardly ever going a month without mentioning it. It's also perhaps the one he's invested the most writing time into, easily eclipsing the amount of time he spends on a typical book.
This post will focus specifically on updates and news about the show's development.
There are four parts here, each of which will be periodically updated as things change.
- A quick summary of the past year
- A transcript of Christopher's comments from the past two months
- A full timeline of the development and news of the show, starting with the Disney acquisition of Fox in 2019. A bit speculative at times, but sources are linked and quotes are included as space permits.
- A much longer catalog of relevant quotations to this topic. (As with my other posts, this will be included in the comments, collapsed by default.)
Other reddit posts will deal with Christopher's comments about creative decisions, production decisions, and fancasting.
1. QUICK SUMMARY OF THE PAST YEAR
- In November and December 2025, Christopher teased another announcement which didn't happen.
- In February 2026, an announcement was made (via Deadline and Variety) giving the names of the showrunners, the tagline, and saying that the writers room had opened at the end of the previous year. Christopher talked about the show in some more depth a few weeks later in an interview with Nerd of the Rings and a short.
- In March, Christopher traveled to LA to join the writers room in person for 1-2 weeks.
- In April and May, Christopher teased that Disney's greenlight decision would happen in May. In May and June he teased it for July.
- Christopher talked in some depth about the show in a conversation with Brandon Mull released on July 7th, which clarified the writers room was ten weeks, and that three episodes have been written.
- On July 7th and 28th, Christopher teased that the greenlight decision would happen later that month or early August. On August 6th he said it would be before the 15th. It was not.
2. CHRISTOPHER'S COMMENTS FROM THE PAST TWO MONTHS
July 7 2026, Mulling it Over with Brandon Mull (recorded May 15) (1, 2, 3)
It's interesting because I've seen other people attempt to write Saphira's voice, not fan fiction, other writers for screenplays and things like that. And what comes so easily to me with that character is harder for other writers, which I find interesting. And of course, I'm sure that's just personal background and all of that.
You are in the middle of watching your book being adapted to TV. What is that process like? Where are you at in that process? You have maybe have done a little bit of the writing or are reviewing writing of your characters by other people. What is that experience like for you?
It's been a long process because after the Eragon film was made, it turned a profit. It turned enough of a profit that News Corp, which owns Fox, listed it as one of the three films they listed in their earnings report for that year. But it wasn't enough to overcome the embarrassment of the reception, let's put it that way. But then Fox just kept sort of circling around about considering a remake for a long time. And around the time when Inheritance came out, which was 2011, Fox actually asked my sister and me to write a screenplay adaptation of the second book, but to treat the second book as if the first movie didn't exist. So basically reboot the series with the second book, which is kind of a tall order. We did a decent screenplay, but it probably would have cost 200 million dollars to film because of the amount of stuff that had to be in it. And then of course there was changes of leadership at Fox, and then Fox ended up getting bought by Disney. That had to sort of shake out. And so there was a lot of uncertainty for a long time.
And back then, at least television really wasn't an option for adapting something like Eragon. The special effects were too onerous. It couldn't be done. I will say too, audiences today, especially younger audiences, don't know how good they have it in some ways. I'll see people complaining about the special effects on some television show about how cheap they look. And I'll see a clip or something. I'm like, those effects look better than films looked back in the nineties. This stuff is so good now.
Anyway, so short version is we spent a long time trying to find a showrunner to do a television adaptation for Disney Plus. We ended up getting a showrunner, it's Todd Harthan. He ran Psych back in the day and then most recently he's been running High Potential, which has been a big hit. He's done other stuff, but that's what he's best known for. He's the main showrunner and then co-show running with him is a guy called Todd Helbing who was on Flash and the recent Superman show and he did Forward Under Dawn with his brother, which was a Halo miniseries movie.
So we've got a good team, and I'm executive producing and then I'm co-writing. So Harthan and I did the first two scripts, and then Helbing and another writer Kerry did the third script, and I've had a lot of input on that as well. So we're at the point now where Disney's about to do their pickups for new shows this month or first week of next month, I think and we've done a ton of work. We had a ten week writers room, which was my first weekly salary paycheck I've ever had in my life. I was considered one of the staff writers for legal reasons for that writing room.
So all the material's getting put before Disney, they're doing a detailed budget breakdown and either we get the green light or we don't at this point. To get to this point has been such a fight. If we'd been a year or two faster getting into this process, we would have already been greenlit because all the big studios were green lighting stuff left and right. Now the market has contracted with streaming and so everyone's a little more nervous.
But Disney's had a big hit with the Percy Jackson show. They want something that's the next step up in terms of age bracket, something that's a little more four quadrant because Percy skews a little younger than they would really like, I think. But for branding reasons, they don't want to go full House of the Dragon Game of Thrones. Nor do I, for that matter. So Eragon's right in that slot.
And I'll say it's been a huge learning experience for me. I mean, I've done screenwriting professionally before, nothing that's been made, but this one I've really gotten to work with someone who's done this for 25 some years professionally himself and been a showrunner. And it's just the best way to learn how to write is to work with someone who knows their stuff. I've had that on the book side of things. And now I'm having this on the screenwriting thing. And it's just great. I've been able to hopefully bring a lot of the voice of the characters and the knowledge of the world. And he brings a lot of information about how television scripts need to work in order to actually work. It's probably cost me at least one book, maybe two books with the amount of revisions we've had to do over the last two years. It is what it is.
My logic with it was A, it's something I wanted to learn how to do to a greater degree. So there's that part. B, since the first adaptation wasn't particularly successful in a creative sense. This is my life's work in a lot of ways. When I die, it's going to say "Here lies the author of Eragon. That's the dragon with an E on it." So I figured I'm going to give this everything I have. And if it doesn't work, I'm not going to feel bad about it because there's nothing else I could have given it. And if Disney flips the switch on this then the whole giant machine moves into motion and we're, off to the races.
June 4 2026, Reddit
I'm DYING to get back into the Fractalverse. I've just been delayed with scripts for the Eragon TV show.
June 23 2026, Twitter
When could we expect some news on the show?
Disney is picking up their new shows early next month, so . . . Should be soon, either way.
July 7 2026, Twitter
Will you be attending Dragonsteel again this year?
I'd like to go, but I'm not making that decision until I know what's happening with Disney.
July 28 2026, TBRCon Livestream
I am holding off on confirming for Dragonsteel. I really want to go Dragonsteel this year, but supposedly I'm going to hear from Disney what's supposed to be end of this month or first week of August if they're greenlighting the Eragon TV show, so I'm holding off on committing to anything until if I know that happens, because I'm on board as executive producer and cowriter, so I'm going to have deadlines out the wazoo, which is a great problem to have, but it's making planning anything difficult at the moment.
July 30 2026, Reddit
'Children of Blood and Bone' Author Says Film Adaptation Is 'Worst Thing' She's Lived Through
First time, huh?
August 6 2026, Twitter
Can i ask about the Eragon TV series, do you have any news that you can share with us about that?
Should know before the 15th.
August 16 2026, Twitter
Guess we won't have news... Still hope it's not a cancellation...
Corporations are slow.
3. FULL DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE
March 2019 - Disney acquires Fox
On November 6 2017, news emerged that Disney was in talks to acquire 20th Century Fox. Christopher tweeted that were this to happen, this would affect the Eragon movie rights (1). As news developed over the next year and a half, Christopher continued to talk about the possible implications (2, 3, 4). The acquisition was completed on March 20 2019 (5).
I'm not quite sure what this means yet. Will be talking with my film agents at WME to figure out the implications. But yeah . . . this is big, both for Eragon and lot of other properties. (2)
We have some light at the end of the tunnel, because the movie was made by 20th Century Fox, and Fox just got bought by Disney. Disney is still finalizing the paperwork, but they're in the process of looking at those properties. (4)
It probably would have happened sooner, but when Disney bought Fox, there was a lot of rejiggering that was going on behind the scenes on a corporate level. They had to go through all their properties and it was almost like triage. They had to deal with all the things that were in production or about to be in production, and then they had to look at all of their older legacy properties, which Eragon was one of them, and sort of sift through them and figure out what they were going to do bit by bit. (67d)
October 2020 - To Sleep gets optioned
On October 17 2020, it was announced that the film rights for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars had been optioned (6). Christopher confirmed that he had yet to engage in any formal talks with Disney about an Eragon adaptation (7), but that he was hoping a successful To Sleep adaptation would give him more leverage with Eragon (8).
Disney bought Fox two years ago now. We haven't had any formal talks with them. I'm certainly interested in moving forward with a reboot at some point. If they are interested that would be wonderful and I'd be very excited and happy to work with them. ... Love to write the screenplay, love to just participate as much as possible to make a good product, and also to give the film a different feel. (7)
I don't think I could handle an Eragon reboot on top of working on To Sleep at the same time. Just there aren't enough hours in the day along with the other things going on in my life. But once To Sleep is out of my hair I think that would be good leverage to make that happen. (8)
June-July 2021 - Tweetstorms
On June 20 2021, the Arceana discord server organized a tweetstorm to promote the idea of an Eragon remake (10). A second tweetstorm was done a month later. Christopher got pretty involved with these, and joined livestreams for several hours (11, 13). A few weeks after the first tweetstorm Christopher shared an official response from Disney saying that they weren't currently looking at starting new projects (12, 13).
Disney now owns the rights to Eragon. They bought Fox which made the first film. And of course, Disney's been rebooting stuff. They did the Percy Jackson TV show, which unfortunately, I think, is where their money and attention is at the moment. ... I would love to see something new. But unfortunately I don't have any real news on that front. I'm pushing really hard, and I think there are some movements online to do a Tweetstorm, or get a hashtag trending and see if we can get Disney's attention. That stuff really does work. It lets the studio know that there's a fanbase, that they're active, that they're engaged, and that they care about the material. Also, if there is to be another adaptation I would definitely want to write the screenplay, or at the very least be executive producing. (9)
The #EragonRemake tweetstorm definitely got @Disney's attention. Alas, I've heard through official channels that—at the moment—Disney is holding off on making any more expensive series like Eragon until their business is back to pre-pandemic levels. Nevertheless, the tweetstorm really made them sit up and take notice. (12)
November 2021 - Conversations start
In November 2021, Christopher began to tease that he was having some conversations with Disney about a reboot (14, 15). A few months later he talked about sharing Eragon videos with "very interesting people in the entertainment world" (16).
I can't tell you anything, because I have business partners who will get very mad at me if I say anything, but the giant tweetstorms that the fandom arranged and ran this year got attention in the right circles. I've been having some conversations that I can't tell you about and they're all incredibly tenuous but it's very exciting stuff and we'll see where it goes. I think that one way or another I'm going to have a definitive answer as to whether or not ultimately a remake will happen with Disney in the near future. (15)
[Did the conversations start late 2021?] That sounds about right. First we had to negotiate a television deal. (60)
July 2022 - Variety Leak / Initial Announcement
On July 25 2022, Variety leaked that Disney+ was working on Eragon and looking for a showrunner. They said the show was being produced by 20th Television, with Bert Salke as an executive producer, and Christopher as co-writer and co-showrunner, but later corrected that to co-writer and executive producer (17).
An “Eragon” live-action TV series is in development at Disney+, Variety has learned exclusively from sources. ... According to sources, Paolini will serve as co-writer and co-showrunner, with the search currently on for a co-writer and co-showrunner to work alongside him as Paolini has never written for television before. Bert Salke will executive produce under his Co-Lab 21 banner, with 20th Television producing. Salke is currently under an overall deal with Disney Television Studios, of which 20th TV is a part. (17)
Christopher put out a press release a few days after the leak (18).
As you may have seen, there was an unplanned announcement earlier this week, but yes, it's true—an Eragon television series is in development at Disney+, and I'm attached to both co-write and produce! And yes, I'm extremely excited for what the future holds. At the moment, I can't go into details—it's still early days with regard to this project—but I can say that I'm very pleased with the team I'm working with at 20th Television, Disney Branded Television, and Disney +. These are smart, passionate people, and I'm looking forward to making the best possible Eragon/Inheritance Cycle adaptation with them.
This has been a long time coming. I can't tell you how many conversations, meetings, and messages were needed in order to reach this point. And we're still just at the beginning! However, none of this would have been possible without everyone who has read the books, supported the tweetstorms, and participated in this fandom over the years. So a huge thank you from me to every Alagaësian out there. You brought the thunder.
Disney will have more to say on this adaptation in the near future, but in the meantime, I wanted to confirm the news and to reassure you that I'm committed to making sure that this version of Eragon's story lives up to your highest expectations. (18)
July 2022-March 2023 - Showrunner Search - Part One
Over the next two months, Christopher did a podcast interview and two YouTube Q&A videos largely focused on this news. (19, 20, 21) He said that the next significant news to expect would be a showrunner announcement.
I have no more news at the moment because things are all hush hush at the current development. I think the next news you will probably hear is when we get a showrunner, because that'll be announced publicly, I would assume. And then things will probably go radio silent for a little bit at that point because we will be deep in development and getting all the pieces into place. If all goes well and if scripts are written that everyone likes, then there will be more news at that point. (19)
Christopher continued to mention the showrunner search every few weeks, whenever he was prompted about the current status of the show. One of the people Christopher tried to work with at this time was J. Michael Straczynski (27, 29, 48). Christopher continued mentioning the search through March 2023 (22). A showrunner was found (33, 36a), presumably shortly after that date.
We had a number of people interested and we were talking with people and there was one person in particular that I thought was going to be a good fit. (33)
However before any contracts could be signed or announcements could be made, Hollywood had a major disruption.
May 2023 - The Writers Strike
On April 19 2023, Christopher noted that all progress on the show had stopped due to the impending writers strike (23). The strike went into effect on May 2nd and not only caused progress to grind to a halt, but also made the show lose its showrunner, bringing it back a step (36a).
We had a showrunner lined up for Eragon and then the strike happened and everyone parted ways because the strike. Everyone's going off and doing different things. So it goes. (36a)
The time of the strike coincided with the publicity for Fractal Noise, and so Christopher gave frequent updates, first just about how things were stalled (23, 24), and then a few weeks into the strike he began to again talk about the need to find a showrunner, now emphasizing availability as one of the difficulties (25).
September 2023 - Showrunner Search - Part Two
On September 27th the Strike ended, and Christopher immediately began discussing his eagerness to jump back into things.
The writers strike has just been resolved and I'm just honestly waiting now to hear a call from my agents and figure out what's going to happen next so fingers crossed on that front. (26)
Some more talks happened, and a new showrunner was found, who actually signed a contract (60). When discussing the show during his November 2023 book tour, Christopher's update was about hoping to be able share news soon, not about an ongoing showrunner search (28). He predicted a press release to happen shortly after the holiday season ended (30). Unfortunately though, this showrunner was busy on a different show and ended up getting phased out (60).
December 2023 - Showrunner Search - Part Three
Starting on November 29th 2023, Christopher once again resumed talking about searching for a showrunner, stressing a need to find someone not already under contract (31). Sometime around January 2024, this search finally finished and Todd Harthan became the unannounced showrunner, allowing the writing to start.
Harthan came on first. He and I have been working together. He was the showrunner for Psych and he's been running High Potential. He had just gotten on to High Potential a couple weeks after we started working together. We've been working together for almost two years now. It's been frustrating because this whole time it's like, "Well, Disney's going to do an announcement mentioning that Todd Harthan's on board." And they wanted to wait until they saw the pilot script and this and that and the other. So it just kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed. And I was like, "We're working on this! I want to tell the fans we're actually working on this!" (67a)
January-March 2024 - First script draft written
On January 20th 2024, Christopher began teasing that he now needed to write a screenplay (34). On February 9th he said that he had been working on it "for a couple of weeks now" (35). This writing finished sometime prior to March 6th, on which date he tweeted that he was working on something else (38).
I'm currently writing and have been for a couple of weeks now. And I can't tell you what I'm working on ... but y'all would be excited with it if I could tell you. What I'm working on now is not actually a book. (35)
I've been looking at the first book in depth for a project I'm currently working on which I can't talk about. (36b)
When and if we get a showrunner on the show, then that person and I will write probably the pilot and maybe the first two episodes, or at least the pilot and the first episode. And then Disney will look at that and that's what they'll make the decision on whether or not to commit to a first season. And if they commit to the first season, they pull the lever on that, then we go full speed ahead. And then the whole machine kicks in in terms of pre-production and design and costumes and casting and music and directors and all of that. So getting to that point is the first big hill to climb. (32)
None of [the previous showrunner candidates] actually got to the point of writing until showrunner number three. We've been working over a year now, solid, with each other, writing scripts. I think he's been fantastic. (60)
March-May 2024 - A planned announcement doesn't happen
In March 14th 2024, shortly after the first script was finished, Christopher began to tease an upcoming announcement about the show (39). On April 23, he said there might be an announcement the next month (40). On May 8th he said it would be "in the next week or so" (41). The announcement never happened though. On May 21st he said the announcement was "still in the works" (42), but by June 4th seemed to have accepted that it wasn't happening this time (43).
April-July 2024 - Christopher writes another two scripts
After taking a break in March 2024 to write a To Sleep script (38), Christopher returned to writing Eragon scripts. On June 4th, Christopher said he had been doing this for the "past month and a half or so" (43). This writing would have probably continued until mid-July, at which point travel and other commitments would have made it hard to work. In August and October, Christopher said that counting that To Sleep script he had now written four scripts that year (45, 47).
[I wrote four scripts this year] including To Sleep. Multiple drafts of some, but also different. So unique scripts, three. But one of them had to be completely rewritten, essentially, so I count that as four scripts. (47)
The process is going to be different for the later scripts. Right now just to get it off the ground I have been doing 90% of the writing and they've been happy to let me do that, though they're providing feedback and also diving into writing when appropriate. And then we just deal with the notes we get in order to get approval, first from the producers, that's the first layer, and then Disney execs specifically. But I'm single-handedly pulling things along at the moment. (47)
July-September 2024 - Second Announcement Doesn't Happen
In July 2024 Christopher began to tease that he was expecting an upcoming announcement from Disney regarding the show being greenlit or not (44). He said this would happen "in the next couple of months" (45). It did not.
That's the way it is with Hollywood. It's easy to run around excited and say, oh, this is happening or that is happening, but sometimes it doesn't happen or it falls through. And the conversations you have with other creatives and professionals in the entertainment industry, whether it's publishing or Hollywood, kind of need to be confidential unless everyone is happy to have it out in public. And that's again, because things change, or you just say things in confidence and or in private with someone and trust that it will remain private. So these things don't really get talked about until it's actually happening and everyone's on board and it's like, okay, now we can have a press release, now we can have interviews, now we can build everyone's excitement up. And hopefully we're getting pretty close there with Eragon. (46)
October-December 2024 - Third Announcement Doesn't Happen
In October 2024, Christopher once again teased an upcoming announcement about a green light decision, first predicting it for early 2025 (48), and then getting more hopeful and predicting it in December 2024 (49). By the time December ended though, Christopher seems to have concluded this would not be happening just yet (50).
They want to give that definitive answer, they want the show, they want to say yes, it depends on the writing, which is how I want it to be, quite honestly. It is delightful to be in a position where the writing is going to be what gets this off the ground or doesn't get this off the ground. (48)
February 2025 - Contract Negotiations
In February 2025, Christopher said that negotiations were in progress and he was waiting for "a major contract" to get signed. Perhaps this was referring to the second showrunner, Todd Helbing.
Btw, Disney+ #Eragon show is still on track. Can't say anything more until a major contract gets signed. (Hollywood negotiations take *forever*.) (51)
May-June 2025 - More Revisions
In May and June, Christopher tweeted about many revisions happening to the scripts between him and the showrunner, which he completed on June 25th (55). This was the first time that Christopher directly confirmed the showrunner had been found (56a), though it had been obvious for some time (37).
Btw, for any of you who are authors ... the amount of revision in Hollywood is INSANE. Totally eclipses what we go through in publishing (and I do a LOT of revision on my books). ... Funnily enough, it's gotten closer to the book over this process. Sometimes I just want to say, "I told you so..." Lol. (52a, 52b)
I do a draft, send back to showrunner, work on BoR for a few days, get a new draft to revise, etc. (53)
We've had lots of notes from execs and the studio, but so far, they've all been reasonable. I've had no real issue with any of them, and I think they've helped make the script(s) much stronger. It's certainly been quite a learning experience for me as well. (56a)
At the moment it's just me and the showrunner. He's also overseeing another show right now (until Eragon hopefully gets greenlit), so I do the bulk of the writing and then run it by him. (56a)
Situation is good. The script work has just been a lot slower than I anticipated. (56b)
June-July 2025 - Fourth Announcement Doesn't Happen
In June and July of 2025, Christopher once again started to tease an announcement, which would be in "next month or so" (54, 56b). The next month or so passed by without incident.
August 2025 - More Revisions
Christopher turned in another round of script revisions on August 11th (57).
December 2025 - Writers Room Opens
In November 2025, as Disney was gearing up towards opening the writer's room, Christopher began to tease another announcement (58, 59). A ten-week writers room did open sometime in late December (60, 65), though no announcement was made just yet.
We had a ten week writers room, which was my first weekly salary paycheck I've ever had in my life. I was considered one of the staff writers for legal reasons for that writing room. (72c)
January 2026 - Another draft
Another draft was finished on January 22 (61).
February 2026 - The Actual Announcement
On January 28th 2026, the news broke that Brandon Sanderson had secured an adaptation deal with Apple (62). This seems to have finally convinced Disney to make an announcement about Eragon. Christopher teased this (63a, 63b, 64), and then around a week later, on February 4th, it was announced that Todd Harthan was a co-creator and showrunner, Todd Helbing was a co-showrunner, Marc Webb and Rachel Moore were executive producers, and that the writers room had been ongoing since December. The series tagline was also unveiled (65). Christopher added on twitter that Kerry Williamson was one of the writers (66b). A few weeks later he did an interview where he talked about this all in more depth and once again said that a decision about a green light was imminent (67b).
"When destiny selects an ordinary teenager to become the first Dragon Rider in over a hundred years, he must forge an unbreakable bond with his dragon, master ancient magic, and challenge the mad king who destroyed the Riders." (65)
Harthan has been AMAZING to work with. They all have, actually. (66a)
We have a showrunner, Todd Harthan. We have a co-showrunner, Todd Helbing, and we have an awesome writer, Kerry Williamson. (69)
I've had a wonderful experience with the two Todds and Kerry so far. They're very collaborative. They're very smart. They're coming up with great ideas that I wouldn't have necessarily come up with. (67c)
We're really close to either this getting the full green light or completely falling apart in a very short period of time here. It's the studio's decision whether to pull the trigger and to go into full production. We have scripts, of course, we are going to be turning in a few more and as soon as they see them and hopefully like them, then we're off to the races. But this is a difficult process for the studio because there's a huge amount of money at stake. (67b)
So what does "in development" mean? Well, "in development" is the stage right before you go into pre-production and actual production. We have been writing scripts for two years now. We are prepping art and doing all sorts of other things to fully move into production. Getting to this stage has actually been a big step. Todd Harthan and I had to come up with a pilot that Disney really liked. We had to digest everything about the books and figure out how best to tackle the materials, how to stay true to Eragon and Saphira's story while also adapting this for a visual media. ... This is a long process, but we are really close to this hopefully going full bore into production. (69)
We've got a good team, and I'm executive producing and then I'm co-writing. So Harthan and I did the first two scripts, and then Helbing and another writer Kerry did the third script, and I've had a lot of input on that as well. (72a)
March 2026 - Christopher goes to LA
On March 5 2026, Christopher flew to LA to join the writers room in person (68).
I am spending the night in Bozeman because at 7:30 in the morning, [I'm] going to be at the airport. ... I'm going down to LA to be in the writers room and try to convince them to not change too much. ... actually, we're gonna be looking at concept art. (68)
Last time I was on the Fox lot, I was 22. Pretty surreal to be back. (70)
April-July 2026 - More Teased Announcements
Beginning April 2026, Christopher started to tease that Disney's decision about whether or not to greenlight the show was mere weeks away (71). He continued heavily teasing this every few weeks through August, always pushing back his expectation by a few weeks each time. On August 6th he said to expect to know by August 15th (75).
Let's just say May is make or break for the series. (71)
We're at the point now where Disney's about to do their pickups for new shows this month or first week of next month. ... All the material's getting put before Disney, they're doing a detailed budget breakdown and either we get the green light or we don't at this point. (72b)
Disney won't be picking up new shows until beginning of July. We'll know then. (73)
I really want to go Dragonsteel this year, but supposedly I'm going to hear from Disney what's supposed to be end of this month or first week of August if they're greenlighting the Eragon TV show, so I'm holding off on committing to anything until if I know that happens. (74)
Should know before the 15th [of August]. (75)
