Sam Raimi, best known as the director of the hugely successful SPIDERMAN films, and his producing partner Joshua Donen, have optioned film rights for Terry Goodkind’s enormously popular bestselling SWORD OF TRUTH adventure series, published by Tor Books.
Having been approached by Hollywood a number of times over the past decade, Goodkind was never convinced that his 400,000 word bestselling novels could be successfully compressed into worthwhile feature films. In a meeting at the author’s home, the renowned director and producer instead conceived him of a groundbreaking mini-series. Within two hours Goodkind was sold on the concept and negotiations commenced. Ten months later the deal was finally concluded. “It’s a dream come true to work with someone of such remarkable vision, talent, and ability,” Goodkind said. “Given Sam’s sincere love for these stories and his determination to only make great films, this mini-series will be a watershed event.”
All of Goodkind’s novels have been international bestsellers. Translated into 20 foreign languages, there are over 10 million copies in print. The SWORD OF TRUTH series began with WIZARD’S FIRST RULE in 1994. The 11th novel in the series is on sale now.
Raimi and Donen hope to begin production of the opening mini-series, WIZARD’S FIRST RULE, within the next year, to be followed by ensuing volumes of the epic novels. The development process began while Raimi completed SPIDER-MAN III.
Goodkind was represented in the negotiations by Russell Galen of the Scovil Chichak Galen Agency in New York City.
