Rise of the Empire, Based on Julie C. Dao Novels Reimagining Snow White’s Evil Queen, Ordered to Series at Amazon

Prime Video has ordered to series Rise of the Empress, a fantasy drama based on Julie C. Dao’s duology of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (2017) and Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix (2018).

Crystal Liu (American Horror Story) will serve as co-showrunner, writer and executive producer on the series alongside Golden Globe winner and Emmy-nominated director and producer James Wong (American Horror Story).

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The project’s executive producers also include Viola Davis, Julius Tennon, Andrew Wang, Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi and Gemma Chan; author Dao will serve as a co-executive producer.

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In Rise of the Empire, “a Fantastical Ancient Asian Empire is on the verge of destruction, torn apart by insidious rivalry,” the official synopsis tells us. “The only hope: A marriage between the handsome Heir to the Throne and a Princess from one of its feuding Kingdoms.

“As the competition to win the Prince’s hand heats up, chaos reigns when a dazzling peasant girl named Xifeng is thrown into the romance wars by a vengeful sorceress,” the logline continues. “In this fairytale of love and power, will Xifeng be able to save not only herself… but the whole Empire?”

Dao’s novels have been described as “an East Asian fantasy reimagining of The Evil Queen legend” from the classic fairytale Snow White.

“This story, led by an incredible female heroine, is an inspiring tale of strength and resilience,” Nick Pepper, head of US SVOD TV development for Amazon MGM Studios. “Crystal, alongside the teams at JuVee [Productions] and Significant [Productions], and Gemma, have done an amazing job capturing the magic created by Julie, and we are thrilled to welcome James to help bring this brilliant project to life in a way that will resonate with our global Prime Video customers.”

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