Concept art for the film adaptation © The Talisman Prophecy / ETA2010 Pty Ltd - All Rights Reserved
The Talisman Prophecy is a planned series of films based on Patrick Tilley's Amtrak Wars sequence of novels. The title was changed at the author's request, who felt that the new title was a better reflection of the story.
Development[]
The books have been optioned twice before, but nothing came of those attempts to bring the story to the screen. The current option was bought in 2007. Patrick Tilley himself has written a draft script based on the first novel in the series, Cloud Warrior.
In July 2009 the film project's website was revamped, fresh concept art was released and a tenative release date of 2012 was given for the first movie.
Changes from the books[]
The film scripts are still in an early stage of development. At this time the primary changes seem to be the alteration of the series title and the fact that the Iron Masters now seem to be based in the Pacific North-West rather than in New England. Based on the concept art, whilst the Skyhawks are very close to the designs seen on the novel covers and in Dark Visions, the wagon-trains are being re-envisaged as larger, more threatening machines. The summary on the website also refers to the Mutes as 'Mutants', which may be another script change.
It appears that the movie series may follow the conventions from the 1998 reissues of the novels, such as renaming the Amtrak Federation as the Lone Star Confederation.