Less than a decade after Christopher Paolini began writingEragonas a teenager, a movie adaptation hit screens, butEragon 2was never made. The novel was the first ofThe Inheritance Cycle, which includes multiple books and short stories published over several years. Paolini’s family self-published his first novel while he was writing the second, and he used to set up tables to sell his books at bookstores himself.
That changed when author Carl Hiassen’s stepson read the book and Hiassen got publisher Alfred A. Knopf on board (viaPowells). The novel became aNew York TimesChildren’s Book Bestseller for 121 weeks. That impressive run, and the story of a teenager penning a new epic fantasy about a boy and a dragon on their own hero’s journey is what got 20th Century Fox interested in adapting the novel into a movie. While the movie was planned to be the first of a trilogy with the sequels shooting back-to-back after Paolini finished writing the third novel, that did not happen, andEragon 2was scrapped.
…called the movie “lifeless”…
There has been no official reason given to the public for the cancelation ofEragon 2. Due to how critics, fans, and the general movie audiences reacted to the first movie adaptation, however, it is not difficult to understand why the movie sequels might have been canceled.
Eragonis a much-maligned adaptation of a novel because it strays drastically from its source material.While it’s not uncommon for novels and their on-screen adaptations to differ,the differences inEragonwere stark. Characters were removed from the story that would be important in future installments, motivations of characters changed, and the ending fight scene is completely different from the book. All of that drove book fans away. Asone fan points out on Redditeven years later, “…they threw the book in the trash and tried to make it as close to Star Wars as possible.”
The movie sits at 16% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and just 46% from audience members.Much of the criticism from general audiences was down to the poor script.The Seattle Timescalled the movie “lifeless”, as did several other outlets.The Hollywood Reporteralso said the world of the movie lacked “texture or depth,” which was a similar complaint from fans of the novel, who did not see the sprawling scenery they were expecting.
Not having fans of the source material on board meant that people were not going to see the movie multiple times in theaters and inflate the box office sales like they were for theHarry Pottermovie adaptationsat the time. That also meant that much of the excitement died down after the first weekend of release. Box office returns dropped by 70% from the opening weekend to the next.
WhenEragonhit theaters in October of 2006, it was estimated to have been made with a $100 million budget (viaBox Office Mojo). With a mix of established actors and relatively unknowns, it’s likely a lot of that budget went to visual effects. Some have theorizedif the movie had been made just 10 years later, it might have had a better chance with its special effects. It only earned about $75 million back at the US box office, making the rest of its $250 million box office total around the world (via Box Office Mojo).
While that total might sound like a lot, general estimates for budgeting in today’s movie industry mean it might not have been.Movies are often estimated to need to make 2.5 times their budgets to simply break even after marketing, promotional costs, and profit sharing after the fact are taken into account. That would mean thatEragonwould have just broken even for 20th Century Fox.Add to that the mostly scathing reviews of the movie, and it’s not surprising that the studio did not want to risk making another movie.
Despite negative reactions to the movie,Eragonwas nominated for two Satellite Awards.
Paolini was also putting the final touches on the third book in his series at the time thatEragonwas released, which means the studio did not know what they believed was the complete story yet. Paolini would also go on to write two more novels and an anthology of short stories set in the same universe several years later.
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What Eragon 2 Would Have Been About
Eragon 2 Would Have Followed Eldest
The second book inThe Inheritance CycleisEldest. Since the novel was published in 2005, it was already completed at the time the first movie was made, andEragon 2would have likely followed most of the events of the novel in order to set up the third and final movie, which would have been based on the third novel,Brisingr.
The Dwarves were left out of the first movie completely, so it is unclear how a sequel would have handled that aspect of the story.
The second novel begins only three days after the events of the first novel, but the movies might not have gone for such a compressed timeline if they were made, since so many changes were made to the first film from the book’s story. The story would still likely have followed the broad strokes of the novel, which sees Eragon continue to train as a Dragon Rider.He and Saphira make the journey to the realm of the Elves to continue training there.
Complicating Eragon’s story, however, is that he is adopted by one of the Dwarves and his new brother accompanies him on his journey. The Dwarves were left out of the first movie completely, so it is unclear how a sequel would have handled that aspect of the story.
Eragon shares his main character status with two others in the second book though: his cousin Roran and future Varden leader Nasuada.While the former rallies his people to join the Varden, the latter prepares to take her father’s place as the leader of her people. Roran actually becomes a staunch defender of his village and only rallies the inhabitants to join Nasuada’s forces after his new wife is taken by the enemy. The story ultimately ends in a major battle that reveals several twists that would have helped to set the events of the third movie in motion.
In 2021, 15 years after the first movie hit theaters, there were hopes for a new adaptation because Disney+ was actively making adaptations of book series that had already been done before. Disney+ was in production onGoosebumpsat the time and was castingPercy Jackson and the OlympianswhenEragonfans, and Paolini himself, got wind of it.
Paolini encouraged fans on Twitter(now X) to tweet at Disney to voice how much they would like to seeEragonget another chance at an adaptation. The “tweetstorm” got plenty of attention by media outlets, andby mid-2022, anEragonDisney+ series was in development.
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Disney+ has been busy working on theEragonreboot behind the scenes. Not a whole lot of information has been made available to the public, but that is not unusual considering the series has not even made it to the writing or casting stages just yet. AsPaolini pointed out on his Xaccount in early 2025, “Hollywood negotiations take forever.”
What is known about theEragonreboot is that Paolini will be heavily involved in the creative process.Because the platform saw such success with author Rick Riordan being involved for thePercy Jacksonseries, bringing the original writer on to help with the show’s vision makes sense. Paolini will be helping to write the scripts as well.He even shared an imageof his Writers Guild of America card in January.
The series does share something else with thePercy Jacksonadaptation. Bert Salke is producing both. It’s entirely possible the two series might end up sharing more members of their creative teams if they are not in production at the same time as well.
It is likely the first season will attempt to adapt the first novel, and if the streamer moves forward with more seasons of the show, they will delve into the book’s sequels. Because the series is so early in the development process, it might be a while before fans get major news on theEragonreboot.
