Music plays an important role in Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles, with entire passages and plotlines of the fantasy series hinging on half-remembered folk songs or the ability to play guitar after a string snaps. With the series in the process of getting not just the big-screen adaptation, but also a TV show and video game, it’s a good omen that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda has signed on to compose the score and pen original songs. The press release also casually drops that he has the option to be involved with any future stage adaption. Will the addition of a stage show to the already-planned film franchise, TV show, and video game make The Kingkiller Chronicle the largest books-to-everything adaptation we’ve ever seen? Yes.
“Pat Rothfuss’ Kingkiller books are among the most read and re-read in our home,” Miranda said in a press release. “It’s a world you want to spend lifetimes in, as his many fans will attest. Pat also writes about the act of making music more beautifully than any novelist I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to play a part in bringing this world to life onscreen.”
Lionsgate’s adaptation will encompass a film franchise that relays the main story of the series, with a companion television show that expands the world outside the books’ narrative. Books one and two in the planned trilogy—The Name Of The Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear—are hugely popular best-sellers. Rothfuss has also written supplementary texts focusing on minor characters, which will presumably be drawn upon for the TV show.
Rothfuss sounds understandably excited about working with Miranda. “I’ve been working with Lionsgate for months now, and the creative team we’ve been assembling is amazing,” he said in the press release. “They’re brilliant folks, uniquely suited to dealing with the challenges of bringing a story like mine into multiple mediums simultaneously. Now, on top of all that, we’ve brought Lin-Manuel Miranda into the mix. There is no living human being I would rather have a creative collaboration with. There are no words that can express how excited I am.”