Apple TV is betting big on the next major fantasy franchise, securing the screen rights to Brandon Sanderson’s expansive Cosmere universe in what sources describe as an unprecedented deal.
Borys Kit for The Hollywood Reporter:
The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series, for features, and The Stormlight Archive series, for television.
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.
Powered by his unique and loyal legion of fans, he has raised nearly $100 million through crowdfunding, including a record-breaking Kickstarter publishing campaign for four novels that totaled nearly $42 million, the most successful in the platform’s history.
Perhaps most astonishingly, he has been headlining his own fantasy convention that has sold out every year since launching earlier this decade.
MacDailyNews Take: This is a major coup for Apple TV which is now positioned to potentially build a sprawling, interconnected fantasy epic on par with The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but rooted in Sanderson’s meticulously crafted magic systems and cosmology.
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As long as Apple does not butcher the stories like they did with Foundation, I’m very interested.
The Mistborn books should easily be able to be done with maybe one or even two books done in an 8 to 10 episode season.
The Stormlight Archive books are massive volumes. To date only the first set have been published with a full second set supposedly being written, we’ll see. However, to be true to the books it will take significantly more than 8 or 10 set of one hour episodes to properly do each Stormlight Archive book.
Sanderson has made a few comments on social media about how pacing for books is very different from pacing in cinema or television. Current rumours are that Mistborn is planned as a 3 movie series, and Stormlight as a more traditional TV series.
Apple made a good choice here: there are quite a few books that are more “stand-alone,” which gives them options to develop things over time. They won’t have the same problem that Game of Thrones did with incomplete source material, or Wheel of Time did with having to commit to a massive storyline. Yes, I know Stormlight is incomplete, but the first arc IS complete.
The biggest problem will be the need to recast characters as time moves forward, and actors age out of their roles.