Joseph Freshwater, Sr said:

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Funny, I just started this series last week and finished book one pretty quickly and am halfway thru the second. My son finished all 5 books and highly recommended it to me. I was also wondering if it would translate to the big screen or television and then saw this thread, haha. Who would you get to play Reaper, though? Tough job for a young actor.

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No clue who would play reaper. He's a very deep character, with lots of emotions and motivations. As for translating to a series or the big screen, I think a series would be best, if done by the right people. A movie series would probably be frustrating, bc a lot of important things would be left out. HBO would probably be the only company that i believe could do it right.

I know GOT finished awfully, but they would actually have an entire set of source material to do it.

A friend recommended the series to me in late '21, and I finished the five books in early '22. I'm eagerly awaiting book 6 just to finish out the series. The first 3 were fantastic, but the next two left me a little unsatisfied. I'll probably go through all of them again after finishing book 6, just to get a good feel for them.

The friend that recommended them does the audio versions of the books and he really enjoyed this series that way. I usually don't do audio books because it takes so much attention to follow along; I find I lose the train too easily and have to go back to understand it. If I'm reading, it is easier for me to stop at a point and focus on something else if necessary.

Bump; any chance this series makes it into a TV series?

I've read the whole thing and I'm actually re-reading and on Book 4 (again) right now... so good

SpreadsheetAg said:

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Bump; any chance this series makes it into a TV series?

I've read the whole thing and I'm actually re-reading and on Book 4 (again) right now... so good

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Someone should send the series to an AI platform and convert it to a movie!

Even an animated series (done in AI?) would be bad ass. With the animation used in Pixar, etc. It would be fantastic.

I think it would almost be better in an anime style. (maybe not the right word, I don't watch/read a lot of that stuff, but think it could be a good format for Red Rising.)

This would be fantastic in a blue eyed samurai type animation or maybe Arcane.

It would cost a fortune to do live action anything past book 1 but I think if done right as like an HBO series it would have a massive following

I've heard this argument but I'm not sure it's true. You could cut down a lot of the battle sequences into more small scale small-numbers-vs-small-numbers scenes with mostly the same effect. You'd obviously need some major set pieces, but they'd be offset by a lot of it taking place inside ships and in close quarters.

Not saying it would be cheap for sure, but I think they could come up with some creative ideas.

But I do think the contrast between the different colors, the violence involved, etc. would work well as an anime type show.

I just don't know how you possibly skimp on an Iron rain. That battle alone would cost millions and it only escalates from there until the 4th book.

Then the 4th book would be absolutely astronomical to pull off ANY of the effects. The storm generators, the insane battles, the nukes, its mind boggling how big of a scale the fights on mercury are.

It's kind of crazy how we will probably be able to do that to great effect, in 5 years or so.

Just open up the AI movie generator, tell it you want a 10-part series on 'xyz' novel, and it spits you out a quality movie or tv series...

There's no doubt you'd have to be creative. There's some big set pieces for sure. I just don't think the cost of those set pieces is the biggest hurdle to this finding success as a TV show. A lot of what you're talking about is sort of large scale CGI and from my understanding that's not what's expensive (relatively). What's going to be expensive is things like the carved animals and close-up effects that have to be extremely detailed like the razors and stuff like that.

I think the biggest hurdle though is just portraying the characters themselves. Showing the characteristics of their colors in a way that doesn't look stupid in live action would be difficult I think.

I'm sure we'll get to a point where we can do this badly, but I doubt we get to the point that it spits out something you'd like to watch any time soon.

IDK... it's exponentially getting better constantly. The leaps it's made the last 5 years will be surpassed by the leaps it makes in the next 2 years.

I think it will get to the point where a human could guide it towards something watchable, but not on its own. I think we're a long way from that. Too much emotional subtlety in the language and on the screen to convey accurately.

But where it could help relatively soon is creating scenes that don't need to convey emotional subtext or even language at all.

In this case, for example, a generative AI could probably soon help bring down costs of creating huge battle scenes or things like the storm gods.

It's a long way from being able to create some of the one on one scenes with Darrow and Cassius or some of the other really intimate scenes where there's layers of communication happening.

It's a reddit link (I know I know...) but there is some good information here about the adaptation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/redrising/comments/1n47mva/past_present_red_rising_tv_adaptation_what_we/

Quote:

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TLDR: Show is in development with a streamer, likely Apple, has been optioned (rights purchased) by the streamer for ~4 years, estimated budget $120-200m, is undergoing 'last round of developments' as of early 2025 but not greenlit. Visual mockups have been made. Has showrunner, director, co-writer, producers onboard. Nothing certain yet. Live action.

This is a history of the adaptation efforts for the series from what Pierce Brown has said in interviews over the last decade. It also includes some ramblings about budgets, comparisons to other shows, and what holdups it may be facing. I have noticed a lot of people either unaware or just incorrect about the status of things, so I hope this is of interest to anyone.

I'll be including all the quotes from the interviews I could find (Drop down to the "source" section just for that), and the links if it is a video interview should take you to the proper timestamp, or they are included with the quote. I recommend you read the year-by-year if you want to see the history, otherwise the summary for 2025 is the up-to-date bit. I will demark **[**speculation] with either '[ ]' or in its own blurb.
Please do not for the love of Sevro's near sentient soup take this as a opportunity to lament for animation in the comments for the fifteen hundredth post a year , I will stroke out harder than Darrow on stims

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I would absolutely love if Apple is the one picking it up. I think they have taken the lead on show quality lately.

Love Red Rising!

Not sure I think it can be well done as a show. But I would watch!

On book two of the Suneater series. I wouldn't put it on Red Rising's level. It's good, but has a completely different feel and style. Feels smaller, maybe because it is entirely from the main character's perspective. It also waxes very philosophical in all of Hadrain's musings and interspective thoughts. I'm listening to it on Audible, the reader is very good. He uses a lot of different voices and is really kind of amazing how well he keeps them separate and consistent.

SpreadsheetAg said:

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hunter2012 said:

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This series is a sci-fi masterpiece (assuming Red God sticks the landing). I pray this one won't fall into writer hubris that is so common in modern show-biz.

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Agree - it is my FAVORITE series all time. I've reread it 3 times over and plan to do it again before Red God comes out.

And I've heard Suneater is it's equal - so it's my next series..

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Red Rising and Suneater have a ton of similarities in terms of roman era influence, sci fi epic battles, and a protagonist famous for their use of a 'sword' but SE is very much a 'slower' paced book that gradually builds. I know a few Red Rising fans that started Sun Eater thinking it would start 100mph out of the gate with an epic revenge plot, but SE is not that. It straddles the line between Dune and Red Rising (if you like both those books, then i think you'll love SE). But set your expectations accordingly.

Now all that said, I have read Red Rising 2x. It's one of my favorite series of all time....but SE is on another level. I'm obsessed with it. I finished book 6 about a month ago and unless book 7 completely ****s the bed, it will go down as my favorite fiction saga. The prose is gorgeous, the 'universe building' is insane, and the author does things with the scope of the conflict that is unlike anything I've ever read.

I think there are things Pierce Brown does better in terms of developing a supporting cast you care about and writing actions sequences, but the way Ruocchio makes you think and weaves a story is just masterful. There were multiple times throughout the series that I had to put the book down and just stare at the ceiling to contemplate what I just read.

(I promise I'm not a paid influencer for SE lol)

Absolute said:

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Love Red Rising!

Not sure I think it can be well done as a show. But I would watch!

On book two of the Suneater series. I wouldn't put it on Red Rising's level. It's good, but has a completely different feel and style. Feels smaller, maybe because it is entirely from the main character's perspective. It also waxes very philosophical in all of Hadrain's musings and interspective thoughts. I'm listening to it on Audible, the reader is very good. He uses a lot of different voices and is really kind of amazing how well he keeps them separate and consistent.

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Lol I promise you it will get very big, very soon for you. Keep reading. It's worth it.

M.C. Swag said:

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SpreadsheetAg said:

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hunter2012 said:

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This series is a sci-fi masterpiece (assuming Red God sticks the landing). I pray this one won't fall into writer hubris that is so common in modern show-biz.

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Agree - it is my FAVORITE series all time. I've reread it 3 times over and plan to do it again before Red God comes out.

And I've heard Suneater is it's equal - so it's my next series..

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Red Rising and Suneater have a ton of similarities in terms of roman era influence, sci fi epic battles, and a protagonist famous for their use of a 'sword' but SE is very much a 'slower' paced book that gradually builds. I know a few Red Rising fans that started Sun Eater thinking it would start 100mph out of the gate with an epic revenge plot, but SE is not that. It straddles the line between Dune and Red Rising (if you like both those books, then i think you'll love SE). But set your expectations accordingly.

Now all that said, I have read Red Rising 2x. It's one of my favorite series of all time....but SE is on another level. I'm obsessed with it. I finished book 6 about a month ago and unless book 7 completely ****s the bed, it will go down as my favorite fiction saga. The prose is gorgeous, the 'universe building' is insane, and the author does things with the scope of the conflict that is unlike anything I've ever read.

I think there are things Pierce Brown does better in terms of developing a supporting cast you care about and writing actions sequences, but the way Ruocchio makes you think and weaves a story is just masterful. There were multiple times throughout the series that I had to put the book down and just stare at the ceiling to contemplate what I just read.

(I promise I'm not a paid influencer for SE lol)

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I DO love both series

M.C. Swag said:

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Absolute said:

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Love Red Rising!

Not sure I think it can be well done as a show. But I would watch!

On book two of the Suneater series. I wouldn't put it on Red Rising's level. It's good, but has a completely different feel and style. Feels smaller, maybe because it is entirely from the main character's perspective. It also waxes very philosophical in all of Hadrain's musings and interspective thoughts. I'm listening to it on Audible, the reader is very good. He uses a lot of different voices and is really kind of amazing how well he keeps them separate and consistent.

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Lol I promise you it will get very big, very soon for you. Keep reading. It's worth it.

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My guess is this is on the level of expansion from RR Book 1 to RR Book 6... maybe even bigger? I wouldn't know since I have yet to read SE

I'll have to check out this Suneater Series. I just finished all of RR and the will of the many - so this seems to fit the genre!