Sarah J. Maas Says She Now Has the Rights to ‘ACOTAR’ TV Series: ‘I Want to Be in Charge’
Sarah J. Maas, author of “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” said she now has the rights to the TV adaptation of her novel, which was previously shelved.
While chatting with Alex Cooper on Wednesday’s episode of “Call Her Daddy,” the writer discussed getting the rights to her work back and why it was so important to her. She said she wants more creative control over any potential adaptations going forward.
“I have the rights back to everything now,” Maas said. “Getting the rights back to all my things has been a big part of my journey in recent years that maybe at some point soon I will talk more about, but right now my focus is on books and it’s been a little while since you guys have had something, so I’m focusing on that.”
Maas, who also authored “Crescent City” and “Throne of Glass,” unveiled the release dates of the sixth and seventh “A Court of Thorns and Roses” books, which are Oct. 27, 2026 and Jan. 12, 2027.
Watch the clip below.
Maas went on to explain that while she has to pass her stories over to production companies for them to be adapted for television, she feels she still has agency over the tales she’s crafted.
“I look at any TV movie adaptation as kind of another facet of the worlds that I’ve created,” Maas explained. “And it’s something that I want to be in charge of, I want to be figuring out, I want to be learning everything that I can. I’m a type A control freak a little bit, but I want to know everything about how it gets made, not because of that control, but just because I love movies. I love TV. I want to be a part of that, and I want to see everything adapted the way I envision it and the way I know fans want it.”
She noted that she never wants to be in a situation where she has to adhere to others’ creative opinions.
“I don’t ever want to hear like, ‘Oh, we need to change this to appeal to XYZ’s demographic.’ I’m like, ‘No, that’s not how you make art. That’s not how I create my stories.’ So when I do it, it’s going to be me, and I will dedicate everything that I have to making it right. But I’ll be in there, looking at all the design. But also like, ‘What does it sound like?’ because music plays such a big part. The music is gonna have to be a huge project.”
She continued, explaining that she knows exactly how she wants her stories presented on screen.
“I view it as my legacy in a way where I’m like, I put my books out into the world. That’s one way that the fans are interacting and seeing these characters, but the physical version of that needs to be aligned,” she noted. “It can’t just be someone’s take on that. I’m like, ‘No.'”
In February 2025, Hulu scrapped its TV adaptation of “A Court of Thorns and Roses.”
“A Court of Thorns and Roses” had been in development as a series since 2021, with Maas and Ronald D. Moore (“Outlander,” “For All Mankind”) attached to co-write the pilot.
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