Just Give the 'Fourth Wing' Series Cast a Chance–Here's Why

Depending on your outlook, I’ve got good news and bad news for fans of Rebecca Yarros’s massively popular Empyrean series, colloquially known as the Fourth Wing books: It’s officially being adapted into a TV show, with Michael B. Jordan executive producing. Yes, a Fourth Wing series is really happening.

Amazon Prime Video announced a full series order based on the romantasy series, which follows main character Violet Sorrengail as she trains to become a dragon rider at the competitive, elite, and brutal Basgiath War College.

This is good news, of course, for fans who want to see their beloved characters brought to life and watch all the dragon battles, violent fights, and ~spicy moments~ they’ve been picturing in their heads. But others have been more hesitant about the news because, well…what if it’s bad? Only three of Yarros’s five planned books in the series are out so far, and we saw with Game of Thrones what happens when cameras start rolling on a show for a series that hasn’t been completed yet.

To them, I say: Be open minded. The show is still in early development, but signs look promising so far. In addition to Jordan—fresh off his Oscar success with Sinners—the executive producers include Lisa Joy, who has worked on massive and popular sci-fi projects like Westworld and Fallout. Joy will also direct the first episode. Fantasy-TV veteran Meredith Averill will showrun, and she wrote the adaptation, per Deadline.

Everyone on board seems to understand the stakes are high too. While promoting the project at Amazon’s 2026 Upfronts, Joy said the team’s goal is “to deliver the series this fandom deserves.” And Yarros herself added, “These are the people who understand that a story means to its readers, and they’re passionate about the book, which is why I trust them completely.”

With all that said, why do I still have a pit in my stomach after reading through the comments on the Instagram post first announcing the series? “I’ve never been this scared for an adaptation (not because of the people involved, but for my emotional attachment to the series),” reads the top one. This fan seems well-intentioned and self-aware, but others seem to have a vision already established in their minds that could be hard to change. “We need this to be hbo level pls,” writes one. A third adds, “I won’t lie, I’m scared Prime is going to make this series. I’m just hoping it ends up being HBO-level quality.”

Most of the other comments are celebratory or pushing for whichever actor they want to take on the role of Violet’s love interest, Xaden. A few more worry that Amazon will “cut corners” with the production budget. It goes on and on. The comments themselves aren’t totally alarming, but you can’t ignore that we’ve officially entered an era of paranoia when it comes to anything involving a passionate fandom. Heated Rivalry’s stars had to address fan bullying. The Summer I Turned Pretty had to address fan bullying. Love Island had to address fan bullying twice.

The noise around the Fourth Wing series only intensified this week after it was announced that the adaptation's two main leads have been cast: Esther McGregor (yes, Ewan's daughter) will be playing Violet, while German actor Emilio Sakraya will star as her enemy turned lover, Xaden. Already on TikTok and Reddit, there's mixed reactions and AI-generated fan edits attempting to “see the vision.”

For every totally nice, normal, and well-intentioned commenters half-jokingly typing, “you better cast XYZ as ABC or we riot!” I can’t help but worry that there’s also a lurking user who is taking that thought quite seriously. So as we celebrate the upcoming Fourth Wing show and debate the rest of the casting choices (in a fun way!), can we make a commitment, like, as a society, to just…be cool?

Let Michael B. Jordan cook. Trust the process. And if it doesn’t work out, then we can talk about a full-on dragon war.