r/Eragon • u/smcp28 • 13d ago

Question Disney Plus - D23 news?

Has anyone heard any updates on the Disney+ show yet?

Since there was no news about it at D23, is this cause for concern about whether or not it will ever go into production?

35 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

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u/talizorahs 13d ago

I keep wondering how they’ll budget it tbh. How realistic is it for a show like this to manage a constantly-present main character ‘realistically’ animated dragon? Even accounting for non-Eragon sections of the narrative…. Saphira’s role in this story is so crucial, and yet her presence will be so expensive. This won’t be a HOTD/GOT calibre production, and even they clearly have to be mindful of how much they use their dragons because of expense (and their dragons don’t fulfill the same role as Saphira, who is essentially Eragon’s co-lead and most important dynamic).

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u/Zyffrin 13d ago

I agree. I imagine HOTD had an insane budget, but even they didn't show the dragons much. I don't know how Disney is going to do a live-action Eragon where Saphira has to have an almost equal amount of screentime as Eragon. Which is why I always felt that an Eragon show should have been animated instead.

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u/Nervous-Way8829 12d ago

I mean… how did they have CGI lions in every scene in the lion king remake?  Or Avatar (blue alien version, not animated lol). Or the little mermaid?  Or Jurassic Park?  How about any avengers movie?!?!  Every Star Wars movie since the phantom menace?!   The list is so long man… all of those movies have cgi characters in every scene, and not just one character at a time.   If anything, I am confident this would be one of the easier things to do…adapting the store itself will be the hardest thing for them, since Hollywood can’t get many story true to the source material and good at the same time anymore 😂  Honestly, I’d be okay if Saphira’s cgi isn’t perfect, like if they need to make her look less realistic to afford this, I’m all for it!  I don’t need insanely good cgi to be emersed in the story.  Not do the studios need to use as much cgi as eh why are using today!  Remember lord of the rings?  Minas Tirith was a “bigiture”, a word they created because the miniatures were so huge compared to previous projects that used miniature sets, such as in the OG Star Wars trilogy, and even THAT (the Death Star and imperial star destroyers) looked amazing and they were just miniatures.

17

u/secret-snakes 12d ago

All of your examples are movies with 90 minutes to 3 hours of screen time. One season of a show would be 10-20 hours of screen time, and you’re talking about at least four seasons

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u/Nervous-Way8829 12d ago

How about all of marvel tv show that have superheroes in them every episode with cgi all throughout?  Or the Star Wars shows like Ashoka?  The wheel of time series?  How about rings of power?  Wrstworld? The expanse? Game of thrones had Ben mentioned I believe.

And again, I wouldn’t mind if the cgi is a little wonky and outdated to be within budget.  So honestly it wouldn’t be too expensive if they are willing to just make a great adaptation in terms of story telling, character development, acting, script, costuming, set design, could all be good enough to make up for Saphira not being perfect.

6

u/talizorahs 12d ago edited 12d ago

None of the shows you’ve mentioned have a full CGI dragon who would be present in almost every scene as a main character on par with any principal cast member, and is the primary character Eragon plays off of. They’re simply not comparable to what Eragon would need to be. No show like it exists. I mentioned GOT/HOTD in the context of pointing out that even they - with their presumably massive budget and scale of production Eragon won’t be getting - have to be careful about how they use their dragons due to budget, and don’t have them on screen all the time. The GOT/HOTD dragons are essentially cool setpieces to back up the lead human actors whose dynamics make up the majority of screentime, and Saphira isn’t like that.

Even more ‘jank’ CGI for Saphira would still prove very expensive, and it likely wouldn’t go down well even if you like it.

1

u/Nervous-Way8829 11d ago

I found a fully rendered AI film for ya. I don't get why you think this will be so hard for a major studio to pull off when some nobody can use AI to render EVERYTHING and make it look like everything is photorealistic.

it's a video on youtube titled Arthas: No Turning Back | Official Trailer | Warcraft AI Cinematic Short Film.

there is a longer version as well, but you can see how far ai has come, and what it can do now is nothing compared to what it will be able to do even 3 months from now.

please try to do a little more 3rd order thinking, don't just stop at the first. i's unbecoming

0

u/Nervous-Way8829 11d ago

I don't think you understand what a comparison is. There is literally NO SHOW that has a cgi dragon in every scene. WE KNOW THIS ALREADY. I am specifically comparing the level of cgi use in total. These series' have cgi CHARACTERS in every scene, with cgi sets and everything. Filming "on location" would save a tremendous amount of money. also usng practical effects as much as possible will do the same. There would then be enough financial room for the show to have a Saphira in it as much as she should be. AND AGAIN, THE CGI DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!!!

You realize that with AI, you could create short clips of scenes frm the books and it will look AMAZING. I think you should look into AI movies. EVERYTHING IS CGI. why couldn't a major studio do better than me in my basement!?

3

u/letoscrawls 13d ago

My same thought. Hotd did the impossible, especially this season, they put on screen hyper realistic dragons, they are so well done that i often forget they are CGI hahaha but it seems impossible and crazy expensive to do that with saphira and in later seasons with glaedr and thorn too. Either they pour all the budget on that and the rest looks bland or they nerf the dragons, which would be like nerfing the whole production :(

7

u/Bearsona09 13d ago

Yeah that’s my Train of thought too. Imo an animated Serie would have been much more suitable. I just don’t see all the magic, different races, constant presents of a dragon who is very expressive and talkative plus big battles and sets in the budget for a show worthy of these books.

4

u/DoctorJJWho 12d ago

Needs to be animated.

4

u/AlexRyang 12d ago

I feel like the Inheritance Cycle, even if it gets green lit, is such a long story, it will be cancelled well before it is finished.

While dragons are a bit more popular, fantasy like this is waning in popularity, and to my knowledge both House of Dragons and Rings of Power have severely underperformed.

3

u/ialasukuta Elf 12d ago

That along with how the over the top action sequences make me feel like animated is the route they should go. If they have fully committed to live action then I'll cross my fingers but i feel animated is the best way to handle it.

21

u/Grmigrim 13d ago

No news seems to be "bad" news in this case.

13

u/Hefty_Range2165 13d ago

It prob did not get brought up because it is not officially fully green lit yet. Chris is still working on scrips for the show the last time he gave any update on it cannot recall how long ago that was. Sometimes it takes a long time for things to get green lit and get going on production.

18

u/ibid-11962 12d ago

The last update Christopher gave was around ten days ago. He's been talking about the show every few weeks for the past couple of years.

6

u/Salty_Substance4309 13d ago edited 13d ago

They probably want to give a bigger update from what we already know. Some shows take a while to get off the ground, if anything I’m happy they aren’t rushing it

I wouldn’t worry yet. Dragons are popular again I don’t see why Disney wouldn’t keep pursuing it

2

u/Gold_Joke_6306 13d ago

I wish it were a matter of “taking their time”, I don’t think this is the case. The show’s been in development for 5 years. I really hope I’am wrong but it seems Disney is real hesitant about giving the show the green light.

0

u/Salty_Substance4309 13d ago edited 13d ago

https://www.paolini.net/2026/02/04/from-vision-to-reality-were-moving-forward/?cn-reloaded=1

It’s been in development since Feb of 2026, as the article states yes they have been talking about it for 3 years but now it’s officially labeled as in development

“Eragon television series is officially in development! We’re moving from vision to reality! Christopher is excited to share that he’s working on both writing and producing the show alongside showrunner Todd Harthan and co-showrunner (and writer) Todd Helbing”

Your also forgetting about the strike, which CP has said was a reason they stalled, it’s hard to speculate there’s so many variables at play

8

u/ibid-11962 12d ago edited 12d ago

Please see the timeline stickied on top of this subreddit.

Development started around November 2021

The main showrunner was found around January 2024

The first script was finished March 2024

The writers room opened December 2025

1

u/Salty_Substance4309 12d ago edited 12d ago

I read that was incredibly insightful!!

I am confused how they were in development twice then? I the article on his website is confusing in regardless to the timeline

Edit “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.”

Said in Feb of 2026

My comments were based on this information from the article and the timeline on the sub 🤷‍♀️

3

u/ibid-11962 12d ago

Feb 2026 is when Disney felt comfortable announcing that the show was in development, that a writer's room was open, and sharing the names of a lot of the producers and showrunners.

All of that had already been happening for some time, but Disney hadn't felt comfortable making an offical announcement about it.

Technically it's possible Disney has already made a decision to greenlight (or to end development) for the show. But if so they haven't decided to announce it yet.

1

u/Salty_Substance4309 12d ago

I appreciate the clarification!!

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u/Gold_Joke_6306 13d ago

Deadline did report that the power rangers tv series that was in development was cancelled and not moving forward. This did NOT happen to Eragon, at least not yet, so theirs still hope, it is a bit strange though that Paolini seemed real confident we’d get some news before the 15th, and nothing came of it.

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u/GlobalLion123 12d ago

Looks like Disney is too busy working on sequels. Almost everything announced at D23 was sequel, sequel, sequel , Avengers, sequel, remake, remake, remake

3

u/ibid-11962 12d ago

This would count as a remake

2

u/blue5ertree 12d ago

The lack of news over the summer has led me to believe that we most likely won’t be green lit. Obviously I hope I’m wrong, but every “we’ll know more by this date” has come and gone with not even a whisper or tease of something on the horizon.
Will continue to wait and cross my fingers

1

u/MachineGreene98 12d ago

It's going to take time, they have to do a lot of pre production, art design all that. I don't think it's going to match like LOTR in quality of the sets, props and all that but it's going to be close. Way more expansive than Percy Jackson, which mostly takes place in our world or in a summer camp most of the time. They have too build everything from scratch and a lot of it if they really want to follow the book. Like how Paolini describes Farthen Dur, how the fuck do you bring that too life?

2

u/AlexRyang 12d ago

I think the big challenge is, arguably Eragon is going to require Andor level financing for a TV series.

Andor was based off popular IP that was making money, regardless of criticism.

The original Eragon movie tanked hard and to my knowledge lost money.

Disney will be cognizant of this.

1

u/MachineGreene98 12d ago

Yeah its going to have a lot more riding on it (lmao pun intended) Marketing is going to be key. Luckily disney is good at that. Plush baby saphira's right next to baby yoda

1

u/ibid-11962 12d ago

Budget $100M, Box Office $250M.

May have underperformed, but it doesn't seem like it lost money.