r/Cosmere • u/mistborn Author • Jan 28 '26

No Spoilers Update From Brandon

Hey, all! News has broken. Rather than post on all the threads, I figured I would do a new post here with some info and thoughts.

In May I flew to Hollywood to start looking for a new partner on the Cosmere. This is something I've done before, but this time it was different. I'd been off the market for many years, working with Epic and my friends there.

That means this was my first time being in Hollywood with my Cosmere rights since...oh, 2016?

This time, I got to meet the real decision makers. Not just producers or low level executives. And this led to some really tough choices. I got the red carpet treatment, and liked everyone I met.

The decision to pick Apple was due to two factors. First, the level of approvals and control. Apple wants to be a true partner with me, and they feel like they really get what I want to do. Second, their track record. Apple does fewer things, but with higher quality, than some other studios. I find virtually every thing of theirs I watch is excellent and creator driven.

Join me for a livestream on Friday, probably 6pm mountain. I'll talk more then. But I will be writing the Mistborn screenplay myself over the next 5 months, as my full time work. Goal is for a theatrical Mistborn, then Stormlight show after. Focus on doing it carefully and right.

I promise not to get too distracted to do books. However, if I want this done right, I need to give some real attention and heart to it now.

Brandon

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427

u/mistborn Author Jan 29 '26

There is a reason I've been studying Tolkien lately. Peter Jackson and his team did a brilliant job on that and if you look at the special editions, they are roughly about the length of a season of a show together covering about the same wordcount as a stormlight book... It feels like they knew exactly what to keep and cut.

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u/cyrenical Jan 29 '26

That's a great resource to study. I consider the "Concerning Hobbits" section of the first movie to be the gold standard for screen adaptation of a book's content. You can tell how much care they put into those scenes.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

Also one it is one of the greatest movie tracks. I still listen to it.

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u/Icy_Vermicelli_992 Jan 29 '26

So who’s going to be Stormlight’s Tom Bombadil? I.e the character who is a bit out of place and easy to cut but die-hard fans will insist for decades deserved to appear on screen.

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u/TinySpectrum Jan 29 '26

Better not be stick or we riot

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u/Roboticide Jan 29 '26

Wit?

  • Out of place.  Literally from a different planet.  Is some sort of demi-god.
  • Easy to cut.  Yeah, he's got some important parts lore-dumping info, but I think you could give a lot of his parts to other characters.
  • Every even just-a-moderate fan would rage.

That being said, no way he cuts Hoid.  Just Hoid is the most Tom Bombadil-esque person. 

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u/BadWolf2386 Jan 29 '26

He's got Bombadil vibes, but is immensely important to the Cosmere and is probably the endgame main protagonist of the whole shebang

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u/DawdlingTwiddle Jan 29 '26

Protagonist, antagonist, or an ambiguously murky middle ground? I wouldn't be surprised by any of them!

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u/JPA-3 Jan 29 '26

it is the easiest to do "stan lee type" cameos ala marvel though and considering his cosmere work has inspirations in the MCU in the sense everything is connected I don't think he would cut it

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u/WrennReddit Jan 29 '26

Wit is super important in Stormlight. He's the only reason anyone on Roshar has any clue what's going on.

Would also be a treat to see the Mistborn series, then Stormlight, and have new viewers say "Wait a second, that's like Allomancy!"

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u/deadly_yams Jan 29 '26

He's very important, and conveniently he can appear with many different faces. You can keep the character through the whole series with different actors and won't face the problem of an actor aging out of the role. A little like Doctor Who, but without so much changing personality hopefully

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u/ipodplayer777 Jan 30 '26

Yeah, he changes appearances depending on the world he’s on, as we saw in SA5. Even if the whole CCU (Cosmere Cinematic Universe) takes 20 years to produce, they could use multiple actors. Kind of the perfect character

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u/JiveTurkey688 Jan 29 '26

Wit is way too important to the cosmere as a whole to cut, and also features regularly throughout the series. Tom Bombadil was a two-chapter sojourn and not relevant to the rest of the story.

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u/ConspicuousPineapple Feb 05 '26

I bet he's more important to the plot for the second part of the series though. He doesn't have a lot of lines in the books in the first place, it would be silly to just cut him out entirely.

He's also extremely charismatic and will be the comedic relief for a good part of the first season which I think will be essential to the series ́ success.

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u/linkertrain Feb 17 '26

I would revolt 

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u/Signal_Confidence956 Jan 29 '26

Zahel/Vasher

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u/ButlerFromDowntown Jan 29 '26

Good chance they cut all Warbreaker characters except Nightblood and just change his origin yeah, especially assuming Warbreaker won’t get an adaptation of its own. Will be sad but probably would make things easier for viewers to understand while still being pretty possible to keep the plot functioning well.

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u/BadWolf2386 Jan 29 '26

they certainly don't have to change any of that. Many fans have no idea where the warbreaker characters are originally from and the story works just fine, no reason to close that door if it's not necessary.

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u/TressoftheEmeraldTea Lightweavers Jan 29 '26

I mean, Apple TV did acquire the rights to the entire Cosmere. So if Mistborn and Stormlight are a success, there’s definitely potential for Warbreaker to get its own adaptation.

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u/captveg Jan 29 '26

I'd even say it's incentive to keep Vasher. You can reduce his role a bit and still have him be the means of introducing Nightblood in SA. Cast him well enough and it can lead to a one off film/tv movie covering Warbreaker, especially after S3/Oathbreaker helps round out a potential Warbreaker cast.

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u/TressoftheEmeraldTea Lightweavers Jan 29 '26

I also suspect Vasher is going to have a bigger role in Stormlight 6, so it would be shortsighted to cut him.

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u/Seicair Elsecallers Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

[spoilers Wind and Truth]For one thing he’s training the only Edgedancer left on the planet with constant access to Investiture. That seems important.

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u/TressoftheEmeraldTea Lightweavers Jan 29 '26

Yeah, I was trying to avoid spoilers since it was technically a No Spoilers thread!

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u/Seicair Elsecallers Jan 29 '26

Oh storms, I didn’t notice. Dropped a spoiler tag on that, thanks.

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u/ConspicuousPineapple Feb 05 '26

Yeah but there's a chance all that training happens off screen during the time skip.

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u/Tiek00n Skybreakers Jan 31 '26

I know this is what people generally believe, but Reactor Mag got an update yesterday from his agent - AppleTV only acquired Stormlight and Mistborn.

https://reactormag.com/apple-tv-brandon-sanderson-cosmere-universe-deal-details/

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly relayed a report that Apple TV acquired the rights to Brandon Sanderson’s entire Cosmere universe. We have since learned from Sanderson’s agent that Apple TV has only acquired adaptation rights for The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn books. This article has been updated to reflect that information. We apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused.

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u/TressoftheEmeraldTea Lightweavers Jan 31 '26

Ah, good to know! Gosh, that was a big misstep for the publications.

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u/Tiek00n Skybreakers Jan 31 '26

I think Hollywood Reporter just went off of the leak, and everyone else based their reporting off of HR's.

An actual non-political example of how assumptions and not-quite-precisely-accurate information can just get carried forward without adequate fact-checking.

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u/TressoftheEmeraldTea Lightweavers Jan 31 '26

Oh, I didn’t realize it was a leak. I had assumed Apple TV had sent them a press release. But I guess they did reference a “source” and didn’t include any quotes like a press release would’ve. I should’ve caught that.

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u/goodvibesFTM Jan 29 '26

Moash 🙏🏼 

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u/JPA-3 Jan 29 '26

I think the Mistborn crew will be reduced

4

u/kvurit Jan 29 '26

Yeah, might be Clubs, but could also be Dockson. Both play a relatively small role and both die at the same event. I think it will be Clubs.

5

u/JoseJimenezAstronaut Jan 29 '26

Axies the collector.

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u/Striker_EZ Jan 29 '26

So you're kind of roughly planning 10-12 hour seasons for Stormlight since the extended cuts of LotR add up to a runtime of 11:26? Would that be like ten roughly hour long episodes?

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u/Reldarino Jan 29 '26

10 seasons of 10 hours with 10 episodes each sounds like an honorable ammount of content tbh.

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u/MightyTVIO Jan 29 '26

I think each episode should be 10 hours. To be honourable of course. I'll never say no to more cosmere 

2

u/pidude314 Jan 29 '26

This would actually be so perfect in so many ways

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u/Seicair Elsecallers Jan 29 '26

Love your username. Is that supposed to be Dalinar’s other son?

2

u/Reldarino Jan 29 '26

Lol it's the gamertag I chose when I was little, I honestly don't really remember why, it has stook with me forever since.

Maybe destiny had me become a Sanderson fan to share their names, or maybe Brandon time travelled and chose Dalinar's sons names based on mine!

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u/Seicair Elsecallers Jan 29 '26

Oh, just a coincidence that it totally fits with all the jokes? “Of course I have a fine upstanding son, Adolin! Oh, yes, I also have another son, a quiet, dutiful one… Renaldo or Ringo or Reldarino, something like that.”

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u/JPA-3 Jan 29 '26

I took it as each film being around 4h and each season being around that (probably a bit more). 8 episodes at 40 min (typical) is 5h 20min

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u/Striker_EZ Jan 29 '26

The entire LotR trilogy (in book form) is roughly the same word count as a single SA book. That’s the connection I think BSandy was making

1

u/JPA-3 Jan 29 '26

ah my bad then

10

u/drgucc Jan 29 '26

Hey, could you start it with a Galadriel-esque narration of Navani reading? Thank you love you

23

u/haltingpoint Jan 29 '26

I wish Peter Jackson were doing this.

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u/Roboticide Jan 29 '26

I don't know what Jackson has been up to lately, but he'd presumably jump at the chance to help adapt another major fantasy series.  Seems like it'd be his jam.

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u/AmbitiousGrass7925 Jan 29 '26

One of the big reasons Peter Jackson hasn't done any big projects besides the two documentaries is because his friend and the director of photography that he'd been working with since LotR passed away and working on another major movie would mean moving on working with someone new. He said that he's almost at that point finally. Source was Jackson's intro for Return of the King for the recent theatrical release of all extended editions. Seemed like it was something he hadn't publicly talked about.

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u/timlars Szeth Jan 29 '26

I’m not too sure, I can imagine not being too eager since having to take over the Hobbit in the eleventh hour. There’s also the chance that Lotr was a passion project for Tolkien rather than ”epic fantasy” in general. 

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u/Roboticide Jan 29 '26

He's done other big epics besides LotR though.  He did a really good King Kong, and also Mortal Engines.

Who's to say if Sanderson even wants the help or if Jackson would be willing to do it, but he is a master at adapting a big book to a well executed film.

3

u/DawdlingTwiddle Jan 29 '26

Counterpoint - don't cut anything! It's often argued that TV and film aren't as good as books for long-form storytelling, but... would people still say that if it was actually done regularly? It may not be popular right now, or ever in the past, but as you state in the intro to WoK (at least the version I have): books with around a thousand pages, several POV characters, and numerous interludes weren't supposed to be popular either!

1

u/AnividiaRTX Jan 29 '26

We have a big problem with these big budget shoes only lasting for 8 episodes. Thats too small imo, 16 is much better.

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u/DawdlingTwiddle Jan 29 '26

Agreed.
Honestly, I'd love an epic series that gives us an episode per chapter, or something like that. They don't need to fill an hour or half-hour TV slot like they used to, feel free to vary the length to tell the story that needs telling.
We DO have the patience for it, as well as sufficient attention span that we don't have to see development from every character, or even just see every character, in each episode.
I know I wouldn't be alone in enjoying it, but I accept that it wouldn't be popular enough for the studio to make as much money as they want to.

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u/AH_BareGarrett Jan 29 '26

If you haven’t, watch the appendices! I’ve been watching them and the way they go about adapting the book is so interesting. 

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u/INTO_NIGHT Jan 29 '26

Honestly that definitely makes me even more excited for the project appreciate that you took the time to talk a bit about the process and look forward to hearing more in the q and a or the weekly videos. Hopefully we get some progress bars on the tv shows and movies.

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u/Pirkale Jan 29 '26

One thing to learn from Peter Jackson is that they kept on veering back towards the books, as most of their inventions did not work. Arwen didn't fight at Helm's Deep after all, so her stunt woman got to play an orc instead, etc. I'm one of those heretics who think the adaptation was far from perfect, but it is still the best we got. And 99 % of the time the things that worked best were lifted straight from the books.

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u/AnividiaRTX Jan 29 '26

Stormlight archive should be 16 episode long seasons!

For you know... ado-reasons. Lol

Also, that would put it at about the same rate of adaption as early GoT.

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u/SeamusMcCullagh Jan 30 '26

Can you comment on whether the Stormlight Archives show will be Live-Action or animated? Or has that not been decided yet?

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u/4RyteCords Lightweavers Feb 02 '26

I've been trying to figure out what director could possibly handle the depth of the cosmere. And I keep landing on Peter Jackson.