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Brandon Sanderson's Literary Fantasy Universe 'Cosmere' Picked Up by Apple TV (hollywoodreporter.com) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the not-your-average-book-adaptation dept.
Apple TV+ has landed the screen rights to Cosmere, the sprawling literary universe created by Brandon Sanderson. "The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series, for features, and The Stormlight Archive series, for television," reports the Hollywood Reporter. From the report: The deal is rare one, coming after a competitive situation which saw Sanderson meet with most of the studio heads in town. It gives the author rarefied control over the screen translations, according to sources. Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That's a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys.

Sanderson's literary success and fan following helped pave the way for such a deal. One of the most prolific and beloved fantasy authors working today, he has sold over 50 million copies of his books worldwide, collectively across his series. [...] While the Cosmere books are set in various worlds and eras, the underlying premise concerns a being named Adolnasium who is killed by a group of conspirators. The being's power is broken into 16 shards, which are then spread out throughout many worlds by the conspirators, spreading many kinds of magic across the universe.
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Brandon Sanderson's Literary Fantasy Universe 'Cosmere' Picked Up by Apple TV More

Brandon Sanderson's Literary Fantasy Universe 'Cosmere' Picked Up by Apple TV

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  • Be careful what you ask for. (Score:3)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Thursday January 29, 2026 @05:03AM (#65956128)

    Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That's a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys.

    Uh, that kind of assumes J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin ever wanted that duty.

    I wish him all the best luck with success here, but this move just might expose the real reasons writers don’t often become screen writers, producers, or directors. It’s certainly not a mix of hats easily worn by anyone, and hopefully won’t taint a literary style a lot currently favor. Unlike the writers desk, the movie set will never enjoy the creative solitude of only the creator involved. You're suddenly dealing with 99 opinions on how to deliver the story instead of one.

    • Re:Be careful what you ask for. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mascot ( 120795 ) on Thursday January 29, 2026 @06:03AM (#65956178)

      I've listened to some of Sanderson's podcasts and I think he's been pretty open about how he does not see himself as a screen writer. My impression is that he wants creative control to prevent poor decisions, like e.g. an exec turning allomancy from a system with built-in constraints, to "whatever we think would be a cool thing in this scene." Or, considering Foundation, using the novels as nothing more than vague inspiration.

      But, time will tell.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mascot ( 120795 )

        Well, having written that I then came across Bradon stating he'll be writing the screenplay for Mistborn himself. So let's hope he's up to the task after all.

        • Given the rapid decline in quality once he grew his dragonsteel org, I wouldn't hold out much hope.
          He produced and influenced the screenplay for the wheel of time series, so you'd probably get around the same quality or less.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mascot ( 120795 )

            He's stated they did not listen to his input on that show, so unless he's lying about that it shouldn't be much of an indicator. Of course, it could also be his input was even worse than the choices they went with. I find that unlikely, but it's at least a possibility.

        • Given the quality of writing we've recently been getting he can't be any worse then the randoms they would've given it to otherwise. This way we can at least be sure writing quality will be above fifth grader fanfiction level.

      • I also hope that he draws lessons from Douglas Adams, who was very good at realising that telling a story in a book, on radio, on TV or in a movie are fundamentally and each takes work and skill to do well. Many things that work well in a book can't be translated well to screen, or vise versa

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mascot ( 120795 )

          I've heard him talk about that as well, so he seems well aware of it. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean he'll be brilliant at actually doing it himself. It's one thing to talk about other projects in hindsight, something quite different when doing it yourself.

          Personally, I'm cautiously optimistic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TGK ( 262438 )

        The Foundation TV series has been a lot of fun but I just can't shake how very much it is NOT ASIMOV'S FOUNDATION. Not even a little bit. It's fine that they didn't want to tell the Foundation story. Honestly, I'm not sure it would make good TV in a faithful adaptation. But... why set yourself up for failure like that? It's not like the majority of the people watching it are 1940s era Sci Fi fans.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That's a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys.

      Uh, that kind of assumes J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin ever wanted that duty.

      I wish him all the best luck with success here, but this move just might expose the real reasons writers don’t often become screen writers, producers, or directors. It’s certainly not a mix of hats easily worn by anyone, and hopefully won’t taint a literary style a lot currently favor. Unlike the writers desk, the movie set will never enjoy the creative solitude of only the creator involved. You're suddenly dealing with 99 opinions on how to deliver the story instead of one.

      RR Martin specifically stated in an interview that he didn't, that translating things to screen was the show runners problem.

      I think a lot of book to film projects fail because the author takes too much editorial control, almost to a dictatorial level. The Expanse series differed from the books quite a bit but honestly, it was better because books can explain things in ways that are very difficult to put on screen so things get changed to make shows work. And S4 of the Expanse ended up being better than

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vrallis ( 33290 )

      It gives me a little open that we might get something watchable, as opposed to the travesties of Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time, where they basically threw the books into shredders and scooped out a random handful to cobble together each episode.

    • However, sometimes you get _The Expanse_, so it can work. We shall see what happens with Sanderson.

    • Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That's a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys

      Uh, that kind of assumes J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin ever wanted that duty.

      Weird assertion. It’s equally true whether they wanted it or not. Even if Martin didn’t want more control, it’s still true that Sanderson gets more.

  • So for those who don't know, many of Brandon's books are very separate from each other on very different worlds with different magics but are set in the same overall universe. You might have metal based magic in Mistborn, or storm/oath based magics in Stormlight Archive, but each are pretty different. You don't need to have read any of the other series of books to know what's going on, but there is some crossover between a few characters that can hop to other worlds that have very little bearing on the stor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vrallis ( 33290 )

      I remember reading somewhere recently that he is finally starting on the series that will actually start tying everything together. He's always claimed there are clues all over for how all the Cosmere worlds are tied together, but doesn't seem like anyone has ever figured it out.

    • I can't remember things well enough to know which is which....BUT!

      It seems that the 'color' magic of "Warbreaker" would make for some excellent visuals. The first half of the story would make an excellent show as well...(I kind of remember the ending not quite having the same feel though.)

  • Nope (Score:2)

    by whitroth ( 9367 )

    I'll pass. Everyone said read The Way of Kings. Spent *months* reading it, because it wasn't holding my attention. TWELVE FUCKING HUNDRED PLUS PAGES in, and *then* I realized he was NOT resolving anything, that 1200+ pages was the *start* of a series.

    I have two novels out*, and looking for an agent for my next two. I have sworn, and intend to keep my word, I will NEVER write the first book of an 18-book trilogy.

    * 11,000 Years, and Becoming Terran. Same timeline/universe, BOTH standalone. And can be read in

    • I was reading posts on this story and thinking how out of touch I am having never heard of any of these stories. Then you mentioned "Way of Kings" and I realized that I read that book! A friend gave me a copy a few years ago.

  • Don't give Hollywood full control. Orson scott card wouldn't give in to any of the studios until he got creative control and waited years for it. Thats why Enders Game wasn't ruined. I'm in full support of translations as long as the movie industry doesn't have complete control, usually what happens is they come in and completely shred stories and characters until the original story is lost.

  • Knowing Apple, they will try as hard as they can to ruin the francise and piss all over the books. As a result, it would be better if they adapted bad books.

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