The 'Fourth Wing' TV Show: Everything We Know About the Series Adaptation

Count your days, House of the Dragon—eventually, a new dragon-filled TV series will take over. Since its release in 2023, Rebecca Yarros's romantasy novel Fourth Wing has become an instant classic among the #BookTok-obsessed, with a legion of loyal fans keeping the title on The New York Times Best Sellers List every week since its debut.

So, it's no surprise that a streamer is already hard at work bringing the fantasy book to life. In October 2023, Prime Video announced that it had nabbed the rights to Yarros's entire Empyrean book series and that the streamer was developing a TV series with actor Michael B. Jordan’s production company, Outlier Society. As each new book from Yarros has come out, fans have been clamoring for any news on the highly anticipated book-to-movie adaptation. Below, we're keeping track of everything we know about the Fourth Wing TV show.

When will the 'Fourth Wing' TV series be released?

As of March 2025, it's still anyone's guess when Fourth Wing could make it to television screens. Prime Video has not given many updates on the show's development—which is understandable since it takes a while to develop a show, and the Empyrean books are still being published. When the adaptation was first announced, only one book had been published out of an expected five-book series.

We did get an update from Outlier Society in July 2024. Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody Award winner Moira Walley-Beckett—best known for writing/producing Breaking Bad and creating the Netflix series Anne With an "E"—will serve as showrunner and executive producer for Fourth Wing. Yarros will serve as an executive producer, along with Michael B. Jordan, Elizabeth Raposo, Liz Pelletier, and Stefano Agosto.

Who has been cast in the 'Fourth Wing' TV show?

Prime Video has not announced any cast members for the upcoming series, as the show is likely still in the writing stages of pre-production.

However, there has been plenty of discourse around casting, as passionate readers make their case for who should play 20-year-old heroine Violet Sorrengail and her love interest Xaden Riorson.

Though there aren't any names attached, Yarros has confirmed that Xaden will be played by a person of color. (The dragon rider is described in the books as having "warm tawny skin," but some fan art has depicted him as white.) Speaking to Variety in November 2023, the author said, "We’re just going to say he’s POC; we’re just going to leave it at that. I didn’t rise to the bait of a lot of those [fan] posts, which I think probably got me some flack, but I knew we were already in development for TV, and I want to make sure that role is open to as much diversity as possible. So I was never going to give the readers my vision because I know that once you give the readers your vision, that’s what they’re gonna stick to. And I wanted to make sure we left it open to as much diversity as possible."

Most recently, rumors started swirling that Australian star Josh Heuston is set to play either Xaden or Bodhi, his younger cousin. The actor (who is of Anglo-Sri Lankan descent and known for roles in The Last of Us , Dune: Prophecy, and Heartbreak High) was asked about the fan speculation on a red carpet, promoting The Last of Us season 2, and did not necessarily confirm or deny it. When Bravo Australia asked if they could call him Xaden, he bashfully responded, "You have to ask the scribes, I suppose."

As the reporter joked that she would continue calling him Xaden, Heuston, 28, responded, "Interesting, yeah, that's a great nickname."

"It really suits you," Bravo Australia added," while he said, "I hope so."

It's hard to say if Heuston is really in the running and for what role, so we'll have to wait and see. For now, start fan-casting.

What is the plot of 'Fourth Wing?'

For those of you who have yet to dive into the wonderful world of romantasy, The Empyrean series takes place in a world where dragons exist, and there's an entire college where people learn how to ride them. In the first book, new student Violet is forced by her mother, the commanding general of Basgiath War College, to train as a dragon rider, even though Violet lives with a chronic illness similar to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (which Yarros has in real life). The chance of being rejected/incinerated by a dragon (think Vermithor and the failed dragonseeds in HotD season 2) isn't the only danger; the school is so cutthroat, with not enough dragons for all aspiring riders, that one of her classmates may kill her instead.

Fourth Wing follows Violet as she enters the school and goes through the initial training for dragon riders, all while encountering more enemies than friends. As with any good YA franchise, there are hints of a world-threatening conflict looming that Violet will have to deal with in the future. There's also the requisite super-hot guy who can't help but be interested in her: a third-year rider and elite student named Xaden Riorson. There's even a Romeo and Juliet storyline going: Xaden's father was executed by Violet's mother after the same failed rebellion that killed Violet's brother.

We'll stop the summary there to avoid spoilers, but Fourth Wing is the first of a planned five-book series. Its follow-up, Iron Flame, was published in November 2023, just six months after its predecessor. The third novel, Onyx Storm, had its record-breaking release in January 2025. The fourth and fifth books do not currently have release dates.

What has Rebecca Yarros said about the 'Fourth Wing' TV show so far?

During her press tours for the January 2025 release of Onyx Storm, Yarros dropped a few more hints that the Fourth Wing TV series's progress was chugging along. In an interview with Variety, the author revealed that she has given the show's team "the five-book arc" for the entire Empyrean series.

She explained, "They have the five-book arc and the general big points of what happens in between each book, but they don’t have the specifics between Book 4 and Book 5, because I’m getting ready to go to my crazy plotting board and and plot out every single event that happens in each book, so that I make sure that I’m within my two books there. But they have general ideas. And Moira [Walley-Beckett] is great. She’s phenomenal."

Yarros also revealed that she has read "a couple versions" of the Fourth Wing pilot and praised Walley-Beckett for "[handling] the book with such respect and such zeal."

"It really is phenomenal," she said of the pilot. "I was kicking my feet the entire time I read it. Really, just no notes. I think it’s always scary to give your book baby to a person and say, 'Hey, tell me what you think is important.' But she nailed it and she gets it."