July 19, 2009

As I follow the discussion on the various Wheel of Time message boards, I am reminded just how much I always seem to learn from you guys.

In my view, in order for a theatrical film to work, we need to first recognize that a watching a movie is an entirely different way to experience a story than reading the written word. In my role as a producer of the movie, it is not my goal to replace the experience of reading RJ's books, but rather, I intend to honor his masterwork by bringing to life the characters and settings of The Wheel of Time as an entirely new multimedia experience.

We decided long ago, that a episodic television or mini-series would have required too many limitations in budget, production quality, and would probably suffer from a myopic and overbearing focus on network ratings. Accordingly, from the beginning we set our sights on bringing forth RJ's epic story to life bejeweled with all of the assets that are unique to a big screen production. We are truly fortunate to have partnered with Universal in making this picture; they are excited about this project and want to make a picture that will both meet the expectations of existing WOT fans while reaching a broad, new global audience who may never have had the pleasure of reading RJ's work.

I would like to add one more thing. I am working closely with the members of the fan community to test out ideas for the picture and to gain deeper insights into RJ's work. I immensely enjoyed meeting many of you at the recent JordanCon event held in Atlanta. And for the record, I should also add that I consider myself a major WOT fan as well.

I'll continue to lurk about and post whenever I have something to add to the discussion.

All the best,

Larry Mondragon