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Why ACOTAR Fans Are Calling For an Animated Series and Not Live Action

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UC Irvine chapter.

With a television series in high demand for A Court of Thorns and Roses, created by Sarah J Maas, fans have begun to speculate if it will be done correctly. 

Disney-owned 20th Century Television has been producing the A Court of Thorns and Roses TV series for Hulu since March 2021. However, as of February 12, 2024, TVLine had reported the project is no longer moving forward with Hulu. 

With such a high volume of fantasy effects and duration, fans of the series expressed online they are cautiously optimistic about a live-action and have opened suggestions to it being animated instead. “I feel like this series would benefit from the same treatment as Arcane, and would be far easier to produce the visuals like the Illyrians, Amren’s eyes, and fae magic,” a Reddit thread under “Miss_Wicca” explained on the animated series suggestion.

The series lovers have trended on social media, like TikTok, animating their own favorite scenes from the books to support their argument like @eospaint on TikTok. Some suggested using the same animators who did Castlevania or Dragon Prince. 

Some have even taken to creating petitions on change.org to get press on their ideas.

The fandom seems split on this take. Other fans backed the live-action, pressing that the level of intimacy and chemistry of their favorite characters would be unmatched with actors rather than a drawing. However, it’s more likely at risk of cancellation in live action. 

Emily at “Mossyreadss” takes to Instagram Threads in a statement: “When people ask me why I don’t watch TV I’m just going to point them in the direction of My Lady Jane, The Acolyte, and 9000 other shows that I loved that got canceled after one season. Like why would I get invested in TV at all at this point?” 

Others think to not even try with books-to-screens anymore as they cannot just ‘get it right.’ 

With that said, there has been no word yet from either Disney or Hulu on any plan to move forward. Are they waiting for their perfect Feyre Archeron to walk through those casting doors? Or are they in the works of a decision between live-action or animated? 

Fans can continue re-reading the series in the meantime, or await news from Sarah J. Maas herself on when the next ACOTAR book will be released. 

Stay tuned.

Hannah Williams

UC Irvine '22

4th year Literary Journalism and Political Science major. Social Media Coordinator and editor for UCI Music Writers, Management at Barnes and Noble, and VP Chapter Relations and Standards for Alpha Chi Omega at UCI. I love reading! Always willing to yap about books. Love writing editorials, book and concert reviews and experiences.