Dragons, dragons, dragons! HBO has dragons, Netflix has a ton of dragons, and Amazon Prime Video has… well, if not literally dragons, then at least a universe where dragons are known to exist. And now Disney+, a streaming service that already has a few things about dragons, is getting another one.
The new dragons thing is a second go at an adaptation of Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, which was previously adapted into a crummy movie in 2006 with Edward Speleers, Jeremy Irons, Rachel Weiz, and John Malkovich (he played Galbatorix, which is a cool name). The book is about a Luke Skywalker-type named Eragon who finds a dragon egg and learns about dragon magic from an Obi-Wan Kenobi-type named Brom. He later has to try and defeat Galbatorix, our favorite character, who we’re going to say is an Emperor Palpatine-type. (We’re just using those names as shorthand for fantasy tropes, we know Star Wars didn’t invent any of that stuff.)
Disney+’s Eragon is in “early development,” according to Variety’s exclusive sources, and neither Disney+ nor Paolini have said anything official about it just yet. No casting or writing or directing decisions have been made yet, as far as we know.
This is also the second time in the last few years that Disney has decided to take another shot at adapting a popular YA book series, with a Percy Jackson series on the way that will hopefully erase everyone’s memory of the earlier Percy Jackson movies. So what’s next? Disney just released Artemis Fowl during the initial COVID quarantines in 2020 (a movie that would’ve otherwise been completely forgotten), but maybe they could try that one again? Or how about Divergent? Does Disney own those? It owns most things, so maybe it should just do it and see if anyone gets mad.