On the big-budget fantasy front, Amazon Prime has just released “The Wheel of Time” and has the even more high-profile “Lord of the Rings” series on the way.
On the space drama front though, an area of obvious interest to its founder, the streamer has so far had only the highly acclaimed “The Expanse” which it picked up from Syfy a few years back and which is about to kick off its sixth and final season.
Now though, hidden within an article about ‘Wheel’ on Deadline, it has been revealed the streaming giant is nearing a deal to develop BioWare & EA’s highly acclaimed and best-selling action-RPG meets space opera game franchise “Mass Effect” into a TV series.
Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke did not comment on that specific property, but did say: “You will see us continuing to invest in fantasy genre of all kinds, we have a genre-focused team on the ground in Studios who work tirelessly with our creative partners on those slates, and you can look forward to more.”
Indeed, Amazon is riding high on the success of ‘Wheel’ with Salke saying “there were tens and tens of millions of streams” for the series in its first three days of release. In addition, the series’ first three episodes logged some of the highest completion rates on the service ever.
First released a decade ago, the original “Mass Effect” trilogy contains one of the most well established, diverse and cinematic screen universes outside of the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” franchises. In the games, you play as Commander Shepherd who must assemble a crew of various aliens and humans to take on the return of an ancient threat to all life in the galaxy.
The project director of the trilogy’s ‘Legendary Edition’ remaster, released earlier this year to much acclaim, has indicated that a big-budget TV series was the natural fit for any screen adaptation of the property.
As for the games themselves a fourth game titled ‘Andromeda’, more a spin-off than anything else, was released in 2017 but was a notable misfire. A direct sequel to the original trilogy is in the works though with a release possibly sometime in 2023 or 2024.
For those unfamiliar with the games, a trailer for the ‘Legendary Edition’ has been included below to offer a taste.
