It appears that principal photography for The Wheel of Time Season 1 has wrapped! On Friday, May 14th, 2021, our team spotted several social media posts of key crew members celebrating the completion of the first season. After sharing this news on our social media, we received further information indicating there may be some filming remaining, such as reshoots or pick-ups.
Additional filming is normal, especially for productions of this size and complexity; actor scheduling conflicts or other logistical issues often mean there will be a few scenes to film despite the bulk of the cast and crew completing their work.
An Unexpectedly Long Production Period
As a reminder, principal photography for the show first started on September 16, 2019. It was scheduled to go until the end of May 2020, but due to the rise of the pandemic in early 2020, filming was halted after finishing episodes 5 and 6 on March 13, 2020. The production was able to regroup and restart on September 7, 2020. This filming was scheduled to continue in the Czech Republic until mid-December 2020 , however it was halted again just after the end of October, with 5-6 weeks still scheduled to shoot.
We have not been able to confirm how much of the filming remaining at that point was principal photography versus additional photography, but Madeleine Madden posted a photo outside the studio on April 6, almost exactly 6 weeks prior to today. Based on this, plus reports that a number of reshoots were already completed during the filming done in April and May of 2021, we think it’s safe to assume there is relatively little left to film.
Season 2 Filming Schedule
While this is still unconfirmed, we also have uncovered that Season 2 may be scheduled to film from June 2021 through March 2022. This is the same amount of time, approximately eight months, that Season 1 was originally scheduled to film (September 2019 to May 2020). As we previously reported, Season 2 will film “immediately after” Season 1. Since we can probably still expect a short break between the seasons, Season 1 being almost in the bag now makes it more likely that we can expect the next season to begin filming in June.
Thank You, Cast and Crew
We’re guessing after such an unexpectedly long journey, the cast and crew are relieved to finally be able to close the chapter on Season 1 of The Wheel of Time and move on to whatever they have next, whether that’s Season 2 or another project. We want to express our gratitude to all of the hundreds of talented people both in front of and behind the camera for all of their hard work. We can’t wait to see the final result on the screen!
How are you feeling about this news? Please share with us in the comments below!
[This article was jointly written by Eri and Sara.]
I'm a longtime SFF fan but Wheel of Time will always be my first love. I want to call myself Green Ajah, but--let's be real--I'm probably a Brown. In my spare time I enjoy cooking, writing, and getting lost in the wilderness.
I’m super excited! Being a Christmas baby, this could mean I get the best birthday present ever!
Woah my son is a Christmas baby and his name is Michael too! LOL
I’m just hoping this means we get a damn trailer soon!
Exciting! What posts are you referring to from cast that issued filming is done? I follow a lot of the main cast on social media but haven’t really seen much to indicate they’re done and an eager to see it for myself
So far it’s only crew members that have posted about it. We hope to hear from cast soon, though!
Best news I heard all day.
Awesome. I can’t wait to see this series. I fully support it and hope it gains a wide audience.
Fingers crossed they haven’t butchered it to much. Remember ‘The winter dragon’ pilot? That was horrible!
Haven’t been able to get any friends to read the books so the series better be true to the story.
Like Perrin having a first wife? Yeah used to explain how he needed that love with Faile but not needed, dumb crap like that ruins adaptions!
hope to see a trailer soon
Flaming great news!