‘Eragon’ Author Admits 2006 Film ‘Fails’ as an Adaptation of His Book

Author Christopher Paolini is getting a second chance to adapt his popular Eragon books — and this time, he hopes to get it right with a live-action series in development with Disney+.

The four-part fantasy series was created in 2003 and follows a teenage boy named Eragon, who discovers his destiny as a Dragon Rider. In an interview with Radio Times, the 40 year old explained that the 2006 film adaptation, directed by Stefen Fangmeier, was "stripped" of the unique elements that make his story so fun to read. The film stars Ed Speelers, Jeremy Irons, and John Malkovich.

"Some of my fans are going to hate for me to say this, but the original film is not really a bad film," he said.

"But where it fails is it's not a great adaptation, and that's ultimately the problem."

A television adaptation of the books was announced last year, though the show's development has been restarted because of the writer's strike. Paolini serves as both an executive producer and co-writer on the show and is currently looking for a showrunner.

"In a new adaptation I want... to capture the feel of the characters, the emotion of the story, and the grandeur of the locations, something that I think the original film really fell down on," he said.

He continued: "One very small example, I say small but it's actually large, is with locations. Eragon and his companions end up traveling to a place where [there are] these absolutely gigantic, staggeringly large mountains, which are about 10 miles high. And there's magical reasons for that in the world."

"They just completely eliminated that from the movie, as well as... you would never guess that there were supposed to be elves and dwarves in the world."

There is currently no release date for the show, though a subsequent standalone novel that follows Eragon's brother, titled Murtagh, was released earlier this year.