Here's a weird example of parallel development... With Sony TV and Amazon already hard at work on a TV series based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time fantasy series, two companies called iwot productions and Radar Pictures have hired Thor and X-Men: First Class writer Zack Stentz to script the first of three planned films that will explore a different time in Jordan's tale.
The first movie will be set several millennia before the time of the books, in a period known as the “Age of Legends” – a futuristic utopia powered by a magical force shared by men and women known as the “One Power”. When an unspeakable evil is unleashed upon the world, civilization descends into chaos, and war blankets the globe. When men using the One Power become insane and destroy much of the planet, a small band of women unite under the White Tower, and are humanity’s last hope of survival.
"I’ve been a fan of Robert Jordan’s work for many years, and it is especially his allusions to the origins and backstory of The Wheel Of Time that I have always found most intriguing. I’m excited to be bringing this era Robert Jordan conceptualized to life," Stentz tells Deadline. "A fusion of the fantasy and science-fiction genres, the Age of Legends is a tale of paradise lost, as a futuristic Garden of Eden devolves into a dangerous and broken world."
It would seem to be odd that Amazon didn't look to make its own films, though perhaps it'll jump aboard (or acquire) this project...