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Following the success of the immensely popular and Uni Award-winning Game of Thrones television series, many have speculated about what the next great epic fantasy to be adapted for the small screen will be. While I personally would love to see The Belgariad and Malloreon novels on either the small or big screen, I think the next great epic should be about the Greek Titans. Depending on which movies you’ve been watching, you probably think the Titans are either giant sea monsters, personifications of the elements, or a scrappy high school football team with a lot to teach us.  Actually, it’s far more interesting than any of that.

Everyone has heard of the Greek Gods by now, also known as the Olympians.  Zeus, King of the Gods, Hades, God of the Underworld, Ares, the God of War, etc., are all practically household names.  But there was another race of gods that came before the Olympians known as the Titans.  The main one was called Cronus, and he was actually the father of many of the Olympians, including Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon, the God of the Sea.  The recent film Wrath of the Titans, which we reviewed last month, touched a little bit on how the three brothers overthrew their father and established a new order of gods.  It also teased a released Cronus waging war on his sons and taking over the world.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of Cronus, and we heard even less from him.  And he was the only Titan featured in the film.  There were so many of them from which to choose, too.

You may not have heard many of the Titans’ names before, but you’ve probably heard of some of their family members.  In addition to the Olympians, Atlas and Prometheus (who are actually brothers) are sons of Titans, and both were punished by the Olympians.  Atlas, of course, is forced to hold up the sky for the rest of his days.  Prometheus, who stole fire from the Gods gave it to Man, is bound to a rock and tortured by vultures for eternity.  Hecate, whom some of our readers may know as the Goddess of witchcraft and magic, is actually the daughter of Perses, the Titan of Destruction.  And the Nine Muses are all daughters of the Titan Mnemosyne.  So you see, the Titans don’t just exist as a backstory for Zeus and company.  They have a profound connection to the whole of Greek mythology; and their feud with the Olympians has the potential not only for battle, but for intrigue, betrayal, scheming, plotting, and, of course, revenge.  Not only would the show be about two (or more) rulers and their followers struggling for dominance, but it would include their families and various mystical creatures in conflicts spread across amazing and brutal lands of fantasy and adventure.

Sound familiar?

In other words, it’s the literary and mythological ancestor to the Game of Thrones saga; which makes it the perfect televised successor to it, as well.  My main criticism of the Wrath of the Titans movie, aside from not featuring more Titans, was that it offered far too little in the area of character development.  A television series, on the other hand, could properly introduce and flesh out every Titan and Olympian, and their human and half-human followers.  The potential for doing so is, if you’ll pardon the term, titanic.  So much of their lore and history is unwritten, and so many Titans exist in name only, just waiting for someone to bring them to life.  Any number of modern-day fantasy authors would leap at the chance to write about a war between gods of legend.  Several already have, in fact, with sci-fi authors Greg Bear, John C. Wright, and, of course, Rick Riordan resurrecting them for their own novels.

More than just the potential for a fantastic plot and intriguing characters exists in a Wrath of the Titans television show.  One of the main draws of epic fantasy, an element that truly sets it apart, is that it so often takes place on another world, one where not only do gods exist, but where centaurs run and dragons fly, where magic and myth are as real and commonplace as anything in our world.  Those aren’t the most important elements, of course, but they do give it an extra sense of wonder; a signature element, an accent to stories that, perhaps, we think we’ve already heard.  GoT takes place on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos.  The Lord of the Rings saga and related works are set mainly in Middle Earth and surrounding lands and territories.  While Greek mythology is mainly set in Greece and thereabouts, many stories also take place in such fantastic kingdoms as Mount Olympus, where Zeus and his family of gods live; or in the underworld known as Tartarus, where the Hades rules and the Titans are imprisoned.  Like in the Harry Potter series, this show could blend fictional settings with actual (historical) ones.  Perhaps some of the action could take place in other lands, as well, since Romans also worshipped Greek gods and demigods (albeit under different names).  The Romans did add their own contributions to the lore of Zeus and the other gods, after all, even if they did refer to him as Jupiter, and sometimes Jove.

Like I said, there is so much potential to a Wrath of the Titans television series.  It could be so phenomenal, especially with the right cast and crew working on it.  Game of Thrones has proven that it’s possible, and countless books, TV shows, movies, and video games have proven that Greek mythology is just as popular today as it was thousands of years ago.  So what are we waiting for?

Stephen Monteith is the founder of Fourth-day Universe.  Aside from writing proposals for TV shows that may never happen (but should), he writes short stories and novels which you can purchase at his Lulu page, and various freebie stories at his Yahoo! Contributor page.