Latest news with #RosamundPike
Metro
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Amazon Prime fans rush to save ‘incredible' axed series as 70,000 sign petition
Amazon Prime Video viewers are rallying behind yet another show being cancelled by a major streaming service. It's the unfortunate circle of life now: discover a new show, obsess over it, then the feeling of devastation when the series gets scrapped before the story's even finished. Fantasy series The Wheel of Time has suffered that fate, having been cancelled after three seasons – but fans aren't going down without a fight. A petition has been set up on a suitably epic website SaveWOT, with over 72,000 fans and counting signing their names. They're going the extra mile, as the site includes The Wheel of Time's 97% Rotten Tomatoes score alongside similarly high ratings on IMDb and Metacritic. Organisers behind the campaign pointed out that it's third season is better rated than recent series of House of the Dragon, The Witcher and Rings of Power, along with fan testimonials, quotes from professional reviews, and viewing figures. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Based on the popular book series of the same name by Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time followed Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) as she sought the reincarnation of the prophesied Dragon Reborn. This legendary figure would supposedly save ot doom the world. It's all classic fantasy stuff, really, but sadly, we'll never know the Dragon Reborn's destiny. Deadline reports that despite Amazon execs liking the series, it just never caught on with a big enough audience to make it financially sustainable. They claim that it all came down to season three's performance, which just wasn't good enough to justify the costs involved. The streaming service examined all other scenarios but just couldn't find a way to make season 4 work. What makes this an even more bitter pill for fans to swallow is that many believe the show was finally finding its feet, and they've taken to social media to make their fury known. @umbreoonnnn wrote on X, 'Wdym Prime cancelled The Wheel of Time after the best season they ever had? Rosamund Pike literally spent weeks in a desert for nothing?' A similar sentiment was held by @annetteb, who claimed 'S3 of The Wheel of Time was amazing, it shows the improvement!! It is not fair neither for cast or fans! Please some other studio take over it'. It was @oluwatroy, however, who perhaps summed up fan despair best when they posted 'Cancelling The Wheel of Time is not fair'. It's not just people on X who are upset, either. Over on The Wheel of Time section of Reddit,where lvs301 complained, 'every story was on a cliffhanger!!! This is so disappointing!' Cease_Cows admitted that while they didn't love a lot of the decisions the show made, they thought 'season 3 was definitely an upswing'. Others, meanwhile, were happy to point the finger of blame for the show's cancellation, and it seems that the rocky fan reception to season one is taking the brunt of the finger wagging. 'This sucks – but it's expected,' wrote Spyk124. 'It alienated too large of the fan base in the first season and wasn't quality enough to get a large enough audience outside of fans.' Sadly, this belief that the first season just cost the show too many eyeballs seems to be pretty widespread, with 2ndChanceCharlie adding It was doomed after the first season. Too many people gave up on it. More Trending 'I watched season one,' replied Hurrly90. 'Didn't even realise a second season, never mind a third, was out. I had zero interest after the first season.' Still, while fans may be devastated, they're still determined to save their favourite show with a #savewheeloftime campaign already well under way on X. Or if you're desperate to know exactly what happens, why not give Robert's original books a read? View More » All three seasons of Wheel of Time are available to watch now on Amazon Prime Video. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Security drags ex WWE star off daytime TV show after physical clash MORE: TV fans can't stop watching controversial show's new season despite 'hating it' MORE: The Grand Tour's 'new line-up revealed' after Jeremy Clarkson quits Amazon series
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Amazon has killed the wrong ludicrously expensive fantasy show
Abandon all spoke – The Wheel of Time has shuddered to a premature halt. After three seasons of sorcerous derring-do, Amazon has put the brakes on its $18 million-per-episode, Rosamund Pike-fronted adaptation of Robert Jordan's fantasy saga. The original novels run to 14 volumes. Prime Video made it through the first four and a bit. It's like pulling the plug on Lord of the Rings before second breakfast or killing off James Bond when he'd just only parked himself at the roulette table. To WoT's considerable fanbase, the cancellation is a huge injustice (an online petition is, of course, already up and running). But in one sense, Prime's instincts were absolutely correct. It's about time the streamer pulled the plug on a mega-budget fantasy series that blatantly attempts to be the new Game of Thrones and is based on a beloved source material. The only error is that it flushed the wrong franchise away. The obvious candidate for cancellation is Middle-earth prequel show The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Not only because it's terrible – its mishmash of awful wigs and even worse dialogue an insult to JRR Tolkien's meticulous world-building. More than that, the series has become a dead weight around the neck of Amazon – demonstrating the folly billionaires such as company founder Jeff Bezos can wreak with an unlimited budget and the conviction fantasy fans will swallow any tosh so long as it comes with wobbly prosthetic elf ears. Bezos has been criticised for firing Katy Perry into high orbit on his Blue Origin rocket. But if anything deserves to be blasted into deep space, it's the appalling Rings Of Power – which comes with a mind-bending per-episode budget of between $60 - $100 million (depending on whether you factor in the $250 million Amazon paid at the outset for the right to make merry in Middle-earth). In the case of Wheel of Time, the sheer amount of story to get through meant there was always a danger it would be killed off early. However, while the threat of cancellation was ever-present, the decision is widely understood to be related to the departure in March of Prime studio head Jennifer Salke. She had presided over a string of disasters, including Rings of Power and dead-on-arrival espionage series Citadel (a $1 billion budget and no viewers). With a track record like that, Prime was believed to have had misgivings about putting her in charge of James Bond after acquiring creative control of 007 from Eon Productions. Even by the standards of a mega corporation such as Amazon, Wheel of Time was a vast undertaking. In 2019, the company commenced building from scratch a full-scale town on a dedicated site 25 miles outside Prague. It was to serve as a base for a production that, all going well, would run for a decade (all did not go well). Pike – who played Gandalf-esque wizard Moiraine– had moved the Central Europe with her partner and children and expected to be there for the foreseeable. As co-producer on the show, she went all in on the Wheel of Time universe, even narrating several of the tie-in audiobooks (volume one, The Eye of the World, has a run time of 32 hours). She was joined by a cast of literally hundreds. There were grand battles involving a mind-boggling 3,500 FX shots in series one alone (1,000 more than in Marvel's Endgame) and a globe-hopping schedule, that took in Morocco, Italy, South Africa and the Canary Islands. In all, nearly 1,000 people are thought to have worked on the production – comparable to a large scale Hollywood movie. It was much better than Rings of Power too. Moiraine headed a solid cast that also included Peaky Blinders actress Natasha O'Keefe as a vengeful demon. The fight scenes were inventive, spectacularly violent and visually dazzling. Crucially, everything made sense – in contrast to Rings Of Power, which implied an absurd sexual chemistry between elf Queen Galadriel and the wicked Sauron. Compared to some of Jennifer Salke's more prominent flops, Wheel of Time was by no means a calamity. Reviews for series three were positive; ratings were solid. The sub-par production values and fake-looking costumes that had hobbled season one had been put right, too. But WoT was perceived as one of Salke's projects and news that it has been cast into the void is not surprising. The oliphaunt in the room is that fantasy is no longer a voguish genre. Amazon had acquired the rights to Wheel of Time after Jeff Bezos commanded underlings to present him with a project that had the potential to become the new Game of Thrones (the studio made its bid for Lord of the Rings around the same time). Going on for a decade later, Succession and The White Lotus have put eat-the-rich style social satire at the top of the Hollywood want list (see Julianne Moore's new Netflix project, Sirens). Long-haired weirdos running around in capes babbling about the Dark One simply doesn't cut it – especially not when each episode costs the best part of $20 million. Where does that leave Rings of Power? The show has been consistently dire, featuring cheap-looking sets, cheesy dialogue and – for reasons best known to the producers – a tribe of hobbit ancestors who sounded like 'thick Irish builders' from a 1970s sitcom. Horrific on every level, its trajectory has been the opposite of that of Wheel of Time, which slowly built a loyal audience (though viewership admittedly fell off from season one to two). In the case of Rings of Power, just one-third of viewers finished the first series, while audiences fell by half in year two. Why not cancel? The depressing answer is, as part of the rights deal, Prime Video is committed to making five seasons. Which means three more years of TV torture – for them and us. In a grim snapshot of television in 2025, a well-made (and much cheaper) show such as Wheel of Time is pitched into oblivion while the atrocious RoP gets to clop off into the sunset, scorned by practically everyone except the great unblinking eye of Jeff Bezos. It is a bleak end to a cautionary tale. One that, in years to come, is likely to be seen as a warning against Hollywood hubris and the dangers of throwing too much money at a billionaire's pipe dream.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dior annual cruise show fashion verdict by SHANE WATSON: Stars embrace the lace as dress code goes all doily
The dress code last night in Rome at Dior's annual cruise show – where it unveils summery holiday wear – was white for women, black for men. If you want to go out with a bang – the rumour is the show may be star designer Maria Grazia Chiuri's swansong – this is the way to do it. Who knows how it was decided who would get to model the ribbon ruffled gauzy confection that Natalie Portman glided in wearing, but her dress was the classic showstopper of the night. Grounded with a long, tailored tailcoat, this was elegant with a hint of The Greatest Showman. Lace was a big theme in the collection – Rosamund Pike's short-sleeved top and matching skirt, with a silver belt and the brand's Naughtily-D heeled black ankle boots, were less princess and more bohemian Victorian lady of letters. This was probably the coolest look of the night. White Lotus actress Alexandra Daddario wore a sheer lace two piece that was messy in comparison with her fellow actresses' outfits. Fellow White Lotus star Sarah Catherine Hook, meanwhile, wore a scoop neck lace dress that was as simple and demure as a peasant's dirndl – and made us think she's a dead ringer for Princess Charlotte.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rosamund Pike Does Boho With an Edge at Dior's Cruise Show in Rome
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Rosamund Pike is a lover of dress codes and Dior white. The Gone Girl star was so dreamy in a collared crochet top and skirt set at the Dior Cruise 2026 show in Rome this Tuesday. Her semi-sheer crochet set featured detailed embroidery while the top showcased tiny white buttons down the front. Pike accessorized the look with a thick, silver metal chain waist belt, black floral lace boots that laced up, a white quilted leather bag, and a brownish-nude lip—all of which added a bit of an edge to the romantic core look. Friends of the brand, including Natalie Portman, Alexandra Daddario and Ashley Park—all dressed in intricately laced and knitted soft white and ivory looks from the Cruise collection—gathered inside the 18th-century complex for the show. 'For me, doing a project in Rome was obviously one of my desires, but also one of my fears,' creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri said in a preview ahead of the haunting yet blissfully bohemian show. 'Cinema has done a lot to promote the image of Rome. For me, it was important not only to show my personal Rome, but also Rome as it has appeared in the movies.' This is the first show Chiuri has presented in her hometown in 10 years since her time at Valentino. Chirui also implemented a dress code for the show with the women in white and the men in black, inspired by the 1930 'Bal Blanc' hosted by the Countess and Count Pecci-Blunt in Paris. The famous event was lensed by iconic photographer Man Ray. 'I love a dress code and I think it makes everybody feel special,' Pike told WWD at the show. There is a sense of belonging and togetherness, you are part of a production, I suppose. It's like being part of a theatrical company, you are required to play a part.' The Dior ambassador also loves an all-white look. Last spring, she attended the Brooklyn Artists Ball in a sugar-white jacket and dress set from Dior's 2024 Cruise collection. The Saltburn star posed for photos at the Brooklyn Museum in New York wearing the short wool jacket—which had a delicate rounded collar as well as abstract illustrations of butterflies embroidered in white string throughout. Meanwhile, the white silk taffeta dress was the essence of spring and featured earth-tone illustrations of colorful insects existing around a garden, such as caterpillars crawling on leaves and majestic butterflies flying about. You Might Also Like 4 Investment-Worthy Skincare Finds From Sephora The 17 Best Retinol Creams Worth Adding to Your Skin Care Routine
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘The Wheel of Time' Was a Damn Good Show
Three seasons—and then an abrupt end. It's a routine genre fans are unfortunately familiar with. There are still people out there (me included) holding out hope for fourth seasons of The Orville and Hannibal. The latest three-season casualty is Prime Video's The Wheel of Time. Sometimes a miracle happens and another platform steps in; remember when Lucifer made three seasons at Fox, then got resurrected for three more at Netflix? Or when The Expanse was rescued from the Syfy scrap heap after its third season, and got a few more notches on its belt from Amazon? Amazon's the one doing the scrapping this time around: The Wheel of Time fans learned last week that the fantasy show will not be returning for a fourth season. Pickup elsewhere seems like a grim prospect, no matter how passionate the online outcry, mostly because the reason given for its cancellation was how much it cost to produce—a price tag that apparently wasn't justified by its viewership numbers. That's a true shame, because The Wheel of Time was a damn good show. Its budget wasn't as lavish as Prime Video's other big fantasy series—The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is currently working on its own third season—but it definitely wasn't made on the cheap. It had a large cast headed up by Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred; though the rest of the main characters were mostly played by up-and-comers, more familiar faces (Sophie Okonedo, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Olivia Williams, Lindsay Duncan, Hayley Mills) were sprinkled through the supporting cast. Across the board the performances were excellent; special shout-out to Madeleine Madden for Egwene's absolutely searing season-two arc, though. Its production values were outstanding; on a show filled with a vast array of cultures across diverse landscapes—deserts, forests, cities, villages, throne rooms, dungeons, freaky in-between worlds—it did a striking job creating tones and textures that felt distinct and detailed. The costumes were particularly notable in this regard. I'm still haunted by the spooky outfits, especially the gold mouth shields, forced onto the magic-wielding 'damane' slaves in season two. The special effects were also impressive, bringing both practical creatures (Loial the Ogier, brought to life by Hammed Animashaun in heavy prosthetics, being particularly emotive) and mystical magic 'weaves' to the screen. Much like Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time is based on a beloved book series, though as popular as Robert Jordan's work is, it's definitely not part of mainstream culture the same way JRR Tolkien's work is. There's no Oscar-winning trilogy of epic movies for The Wheel of Time, for one thing. Though there had been games (both video and tabletop) based on The Wheel of Time in the past, the TV adaptation drew in a lot of newcomers along with seasoned readers, and the show was careful to remain accessible for the former while also dotting in winks and Easter eggs for the latter. The worldbuilding was high-quality, and if the story felt familiar and trope-y at times—it's kind of Tolkien meets Game of Thrones but with more women-powered magic, and an end-of-the-world prophecy that's both cyclical and inevitable—the series, broken into eight-part seasons of episodes that ran at or just under an hour, was still propulsive and enjoyable. The tone was overall fairly serious (as we mentioned, the fate of the world is at stake here!), and many of its storylines dealt with darker themes of trauma and grief, as well as the frustration of being powerless to control one's fate, especially in a world where prophecies are seen as both irrefutable and subject to interpretation, depending on who you ask. But The Wheel of Time also made room for humor, romance, music, and even some delightfully campy moments, especially as the show found its footing in seasons two and three. Perhaps the biggest bummer about the show's cancellation is that it was clearly building toward something very big. The Wheel of Time's 'Last Battle' is, as implied, the showdown at the end of days between the Dragon Reborn, the reincarnated chosen one, and a villain so sinister he's known only as the 'Dark One,' with lieutenants running around among humankind known as 'Darkfriends' (if they're mortal) and 'Forsaken' (if they're not). The Last Battle was teased throughout all the show's seasons, with the character of Rand learning in season one that he was the Dragon Reborn. Season two followed him as he came to terms with that awful yet awesome responsibility, compounded by the known fact that in this world, men with magical abilities will inevitably go insane. And season three saw him begin to prepare, strengthening his control over his burgeoning powers while building an army of supporters. Every other character, without exception, is also invested in the Last Battle in some way. They're on different sides and serve different purposes, but they're all counting down to it just the same. It is the defining event of the story. Everyone knows it's coming. And Amazon pulled the plug before the show got there. This is all the more crushing because Wheel of Time series creator Rafe Judkins had high hopes that Amazon would grant the space to tell 'the whole story,' as he explained to io9 in an interview ahead of season three. There are over a dozen books in the Jordan series, so you can't imagine he meant that Wheel of Time would continue for a decade. But he definitely had plans for a fourth and maybe a fifth season, and you can tell that season three was plotted accordingly. While fan campaigns are now underway to save Wheel of Time (read more about that on Nerdist), maybe the best case scenario would be a made-for-Amazon movie. Another Prime Video show that's meeting an early end for entirely different reasons—Good Omens—is getting a send-off movie in place of a third season, wrapping up that show's own tantalizing cliffhangers. With a fourth season apparently relegated forever to Tel'aran'rhiod, The Wheel of Time's slippery dream world, would it be too much to ask for, say, one more jumbo-sized episode to craft a satisfying conclusion? Especially for fans who invested time and emotions into the three existing seasons? Of course it would be. At least you can always pick up Jordan's books and find out how the author envisioned the Last Battle—then stick around to dive deeper into the world the show, after just three seasons, has sadly left behind.
