This entire bloodydamn fandom has turned into whiny pixies since the movie announcement. I understand having reservations about the portrayal of a beloved franchise, especially one so nurtured as Red Rising. But I feel a huge negative, whiny shift here to people obsessing over minutiae we haven’t a clue about. Let’s be grateful that Pierce has led us on this wonderful journey and trust that anything done under his blessing will be in the spirit of his creation.

Just finished this and thought I’d share! Took about 8 hours in Procreate.

I think my yard fox would be a great Sophocles

I need this to be Rated-R so bad. It won't be done justice if it's not.

Was Darrow ever a helldiver? I don’t think he’s mentioned it at all in any of these books enough if so.

Personally I wish they'd casted more well known actors I'm not sure these guys have enough experience for the roles.

Maybe its just because the announcement is new and it will calm down but sooooo many posts are so negative about this movie annoucement, or they are micro-dissecting every possible angle and declaring "well if they don't do xxxx right it will suck". This is far an away my favorite series/book/fictional world, but my greatest fear every since coming to this sub and seeing all the vitriol and hard-line takes about fan castings and adaption ideas has always been that the fandom is destined to become just as bad as the star wars fans who bullied children and attacked actors, because there's no way that a story that involves so many characters characterized as genetically superior / aesthetically perfect is going to satisfy everyone.

Whatevere, end rant. I just really hopes that whatever happens, good bad or indifferent, people can be cool about it. You're not obligated to like it, support it, whatever if it ends up being bad, or even if it's good but just not what you wanted. Just don't be a douche about it. And you are not personally being victimized if it ends being bad/not what you envisioned.

I always pictured that RR would have been made into a HBO series (or some other reputable production company) with each book a series over 12-15 episodes.

This talk of a paramount movie has excited some but I'm just frustrated with it. I don't know how they are going to capture all the story, the different arcs (when you get to later books and it doesn't just revolve around Darrow, especially Dark Age). I think there is so much that will be overlooked and left out that I don't think it will represent the series in the best possible way.

That being said, the first book is the perfect one to be made into a film. If the rest could be turned into a high budget TV series, I'd be happy.

Mind you, I'm just an insignificant voice and Pierce knows best. In Pierce we trust, right? Right?

My book club discord sent the template this afternoon and I spent the evening working on this fancast for a few hours. I’m new to the series as of a couple weeks ago. I’m about 85% of the way through Morning Star but with the announcement today and my already preexisting movie obsession, I had to jump on this. Tried to go for a match according to the books’ descriptions and actors & actresses from things I’ve seen before. Some of these are maybe a bit on the nose or obvious to you but hey, I couldn’t help myself. Struggled with placing the age of them as it probably would’ve been better to do this book-by-book, as Morning Star is conflating my perception of these people’s ages a bit.

Took way longer than I should have, my photo editing app file limit maxed out like 3-4 times so I had to save and re-edit over the file, then it crashed on me a few times too! Was worth it though, really fun. no AI used either. Now I have 50 something pics of actors to delete haha. (Still 11PM PST where I’m at so I think this post counts…right?)

Please be chill about my picks lol, if you’d pick someone else instead for a role I’d love to hear why!

His pet was named Sevro so I had to ask. For context I'm in white and he's in red

As someone who has been a longtime fan of Marvel comic books, I have learned to treat the film versions of character and stories that I love as a separate entity.

I implore you to do the same. Or try to. Please. Just accept that these adaptations will NOT be the same as the books. It's impossible. It's an adaptation. The Golds might not be 3 feet taller than the Reds. Every charcter will not look exactly as you imagine them. We'll miss some plot points. We're not going to get every single scene. It's just going to be.. different. This does not mean that it's inherently going to be awful.

We've all seen adaptations that are just slaps in the faces of books that we love. So naturally, we're terrified, I get it. Will this be? Who knows. It remains to be seen. Pierce seems to like this team, and we maybe should trust his judgement. Even when LotR came out, a lot of book purists were pissed about the elves showing up at Helms Deep, I can still remember the discourse.. and thats a bloodydamn masterpiece of an adaptation.

I guess I'm just asking you all to temper your expectations. Go into it with an open mind. I know it's hard to do with something that we love so dearly, something that means a great deal to us. But just try to treat it as it's own thing. An alternative universe Darrow and his journey. Personally, as long as the "soul" of the book feels the same, I'll be cool with the adaptation.

It won't be the exact same. Things will not look the same as you imagined. Things will be skipped. Things will be squished, glossed over. It's going to happen. It will not be perfect one-for-one, beat-for-beat adaptation.

So you gotta...keep it separated. 🤘

This is the first book we're talking about, so there will already only be minimal Gold - Red interaction, so the size differences would be a non issue anyway for the most part, and that can be done with forced perspective mixed with cgi, as was done very well in all middle earth projects - especially rings of power. Which was dog shit, but looked incredible.

Realistically fight scenes can be done with choreography and i honestly dont understand why people dont think they'll be able to come up with good visual fighting styles that fit the vibe of the willow way/kravat etc. It has been done for things like dune or the elves in lotr before.

Obviously big space and ground battles in later books will require a lot more cgi, but its not like they havent been done well before I star wars, star trek, hunger games, game if thones, lord of the rings, marvel....

Point is, yes its gone poorly for other things before, but lets at least try and be positive and trust that the author will know whats best for the next step of the IP of his lives work.

The Red Rising series has its number of main character deaths. I felt great sadness and a sense of impending doom whenever these characters met their untimely end. I grieved for Ragnar, for Orion, for Dancer, for Ephraim, for Sefi and for Alexander.

But I grieved the most for Cassius Bellona.

Why I wondered? What made him so special. I mean, I didn't grieve this much for him when I thought he died in IG. So what changed now? I think it boils down to three main factors. His potential for more, the betrayal he suffered and the mutual love he shared with Darrow.

From RR to LB, Cassius had undergone great development and growth from being an egoistic Gold to one who is willing to go to great lengths to uphold the freedom and liberty of all men. Yet, right after he had pretty much completed his redemption and character arc, he was cut down brutally, cut down before he could do more as he so greatly desired.

What's worse is the way he died. A lot of our favourite characters died due to schemes and acts of their enemies. Cassius died from betrayal at the hands of Lysander. He died trying to stop a boy he raised for nearly a decade and whom he loved like a brother. He died and had his corpse desecrated by that very same boy for political gain. The personal nature of such treachery is just so painful.

Finally, what hurts the most is Darrow's own pain. Darrow is the central character of the series who we had grown extremely attached to over the course of the series. And nobody can deny that, in many ways, Darrow had loved Cassius greater than he had loved anyone, and Cassius had responded to him with the same love. Darrow had believed in the man and had great hopes of the future they will share together as brothers. Unfortunately, that will never come to be.

The death of Cassius Bellona broke the heart of Darrow O'Lykos as well as our own.

Rest in peace Morning Knight. Your honor remains.

...

Francis Lawrence, no stranger to dystopian sci-fi thanks to his many installments of The Hunger Games franchise, is attached to direct the adaptation of the first novel, also titled Red Rising.

Justin Rhodes, who worked with Lawrence developing Netflix’s video game adaptation Bioshock, will pen the script.

Uhm u guys do know we dont need rape and tarantino level gory scenes lol. RR may be brutal but remove pool of blood and theres so much a PG13 film can get away with.

Dune part 2 is literally pg13 and we have paul stabbing someone in the neck full in full visibility. In avatar 2 a guy gets his arm brutally cut off by a wire. Stars wars 3 has a guy who gets bbqd alive while his legs dismembered.

Blood is what mostly sets pg13 and rated R apart. Too much gore and blood and its rated r. Just enough blood and gore and its pg13

Pg13 wont mean it isnt brutal. It just means they have some limit on brutality and majority of "brutality" u guys are talking about are unnecessary to make a good film.