Walmart to Enter the Streaming Wars with Their Adaptation of Discworld
Penny-Pinching Nerds Everywhere Rejoice!
Just when you think the “streaming wars” couldn’t get anymore interesting…
Walmart and their Walmart+ paid subscription service are responding to the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones franchise and Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power with their own fantasy-genre television show based on Terry Pratchett’s fantasy series Discworld.
Walmart was able to pick up the rights to all 41 books in the Discworld series for about 10,000 bucks and they even threw the author a free 30-day trial to Walmart+. Pratchett is very excited to enjoy special prices, product releases, and online Black Friday deals.
The pilot alone cost more than anticipated, and unfortunately, Walmart will be forced to shut down more than 260 stores to make up for it.
So what the hell is Discworld, you wonder?
Well, remember going to the library in the 80s and seeing a bunch of beat up fantasy paperbacks that never moved from their spot on the spinny rack? The book art looked kinda strange yet cool but when you actually flipped through one you realized that the content in the book couldn’t match the cover? You might have even taken one home and pledged to get into it only to realize the book sucks and you would rather watch Wizards and Warriors?
Yeah, those are the books.
Some nerd somewhere would add to that description and probably say “Discworld is Sir Terry Pratchett’s most “iconic” book series that deals with a multitude of human issues despite the setting taking place on a parallel flat world which sits on the back of four elephants standing on a giant star turtle.”
You read that right. Star turtle.
If you’re wondering if this is a comedy you would be half right; there are some attempts to spoof the fantasy genre as a whole but the mere idea of it being a parody is where a majority of the jokes stay and live.
Season 1 will take place mostly during the first book in the series, The Colour of Magic, which pretty much just lays out all of the crazy differences and nuances between our own world and Discworld.
The plot is simple and still extremely stupid: an insurance clerk named Twoflower comes to visit a wizard named Rincewind in the city of Ankh-Morpork (isn’t that name hilarious?) and is forced to become his guide and protector in the hopes to prevent a war between Ankh-Morpork and Twoflower’s country of Agatean. They are forced to go on a voyage together which you later find out that their journey is just a board game being played by the gods of Discworld.
This is not a joke; this is the actual plot. To make matters worse, the characters of Twoflower and Rincewind will be played by Josh Lucas (famous for his Home Depot voiceover work) and John C. Reilly (famous for eating a bunch of chilli dogs one time), respectively.
This shitstorm is rumored to cost even more than what Amazon Prime paid to make Rings of Power, despite the book series being relatively cheap to get. The pilot alone cost more than anticipated, and unfortunately, Walmart will be forced to shut down more than 260 stores to make up for it.
At a press conference in the outdoor Home and Garden section at a Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas, President and CEO Doug McMillon spoke about acquiring the rights to the Discworld universe and his enthusiasm to enter the original streaming content category.
“We are very happy to have Discworld here at Walmart+ and we think it is a perfect show to launch or subscription service with. I personally oversaw the production deal and am very excited to see where our team takes the series.”
“You might have heard rumors that I’m on the chopping block, but as I’m sure you can predict, the gamble on Discworld will pay off and be a smash hit. I’m really hoping it saves my job. Yes—”
He pointed to a reporter who asked him about all the store closings to fund production.
“Yes, all those layoffs are unfortunate, but aren’t you excited about the show? I’ve never read it but from what I know about nerds and their fantasy books is that they are very lenient and accommodating to a network taking liberties and creative license with the source material, which is exactly what we’ve done.”
“I can’t give away too much here, but instead of a space turtle, Discworld is built on Walmart’s culture of values in action, superior customer service, and common purpose of saving people money so they can live better.”
He beamed. “That’s something Bezos and his Lord of the Rings can’t say.”