Showtime Confirms Writing Has Begun on The Kingkiller Chronicle Prequel Series

It's been over three years since it was announced that Patrick Rothfuss' beloved fantasy series The Kingkiller Chronicle was being adapted into a film series, TV show and video game. While little has been said about the project since the initial announcement, Showtime president Gary Levine confirms that writing on the upcoming drama series has begun.

"We have a group of writers working away and writing the stories and the scripts, and we're working with them very diligently... [Executive producers Lin-Manuel Miranda ] and John Rogers are talking constantly -- you can see it on Twitter -- and he's very involved. Obviously, there's a huge musical component to the series and that will be Lin's domain. And he's incredibly excited about it," Levine told TV Guide at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

The untitled series won't actually follow the events of the best-selling books. While the films will tell the story of Kvothe laid out in the ongoing trilogy, the Showtime series will be a prequel , set a generation before the events of the first book, The Name of the Wind. The protagonists will be two traveling musicians, which will give Miranda, who is composing original music for both the series and films, plenty of opportunities to flex his skills.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts/Stitcher/Google Play/iHeartRadio/TuneIn

There are theories that the musicians will be the parents of Kvothe, but that has never been confirmed. However, according to Rothfuss, there is a great chance that we'll get to meet younger versions of characters from the book series. "Some of these older characters, we get to meet them. We'll get to explore parts of the world that we'd never get to see otherwise," Rothfuss recently told ScienceFiction.com.

Of course, while it's good to know that they've finally opened the writers' room on The Kingkiller Chronicle series, there's still no word yet on a potential release date. But fans of the books -- who have been waiting for the final installment since The Wise Man's Fear was released in 2011 -- should be used to this by now.

Additional reporting by Lindsay MacDonald

(Disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation. )