Brandon Sanderson is considered one of fantasy’s most profitable authors of all time, a prolific mega-bestseller who’s constructed a fandom so voracious and devoted that they paid a record-setting $41 million on Kickstarter to launch 4 books he wrote in secret whereas nonetheless sustaining his different collection. He’s written epic fantasy, superhero fiction, science fiction, YA novels, brief tales, and graphic novels, with a deck-building card recreation and a method online game out, and an RPG spinoff on the best way. His newest e book, Wind and Fact, has been on the New York Occasions bestseller listing because it was printed in December.
So the place are the Brandon Sanderson films? With seemingly each fantasy epic ever printed being optioned by Netflix, Amazon, and different streamers, the place’s the TV present adapting Brandon Sanderson’s five-book (to date) Stormlight Archive collection, or seven-book (and counting) Mistborn collection?
In a December 2024 weblog publish, Sanderson breaks down the levels of movie and TV improvement at size, and explains which of his works have been optioned and the place they’re in improvement. The mission that was furthest alongside, a live-action film adaption of the Mistborn books, not too long ago fell aside attributable to inventive variations between the producers that had signed on to the mission and the studios they had been pitching to.
However Sanderson says he’s additionally rejected a variety of the gives to adapt different works throughout the Cosmere, the universe of Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, and lots of of his different works. Why? Polygon sat down with Sanderson and requested what he’d have to make an adaptation value his time, and what he’d need his universe to seem like on the display.
This interview has been edited for concision and readability.
Polygon: Whereas studying up on the standing of your many initiatives, I ran throughout a Reddit thread the place followers had been saying they’re glad you aren’t additional together with a movie or TV adaptation of your work, as a result of they’re afraid of the time it might take out of your writing schedule. What sort of involvement would you ideally wish to have in an adaptation?
Brandon Sanderson: It depends upon the mission. Sure ones, I’d wish to be far more concerned in. I’ve stated earlier than that if I had been going to do an adaptation of The Approach of Kings, I’d wish to write all of Kaladin’s scenes in screenplay kind for the entire season. That’d take a variety of time, so their worries are usually not unfounded.
I’ve had a variety of gives for The Stormlight Archive, individuals eager to make status tv for cable networks or streamers. Very good gives from very nice folks that I’d wish to work with. And I’ve stated no as a result of I don’t really feel it’s the best time for Stormlight Archive but. I’m within the lucky place the place I can stroll away from among the finest offers that may be provided to authors, and do what I believe is finest for the story.
What would persuade you the time was proper? What indicators are you in search of?
The stable reply is: I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll acknowledge it once I see it. However the motive I don’t know is, I’m not satisfied that we now have hit stability within the streaming market. Streaming has had a giant downside with epic fantasy, and this has me fearful. Rings of Energy and Wheel of Time haven’t gone in addition to I’d’ve hoped. Shadow and Bone lasted solely two seasons, after a really robust first season. Streaming hasn’t found out epic fantasy but.
Perhaps this can be a holdover from community tv days, the place they’re making an attempt to make the episodes match into the construction of how episodic tv used to work, reasonably than filming an eight-hour film and displaying it in chunks. However perhaps that’s a foul concept. All I do know is, proper now we haven’t seen actually nice epic fantasy movie tv because the early, mid seasons of Sport of Thrones. Fifty million {dollars} per episode has not completed it, so it’s not a matter of the cash they’re throwing at it. The opposite factor we haven’t seen is any of those exhibits actually taking off to the extent that I would love with most people.
There’s one glorious [fantasy] present: Arcane. However Arcane prices a lot cash, and it’s onerous to breed that with an IP that doesn’t have League of Legends behind it. Arcane, I assume, is proof that it will possibly occur. However I wish to see what shakes out. I wish to see how conventional cinema shakes out.
I want to [adapt The Stormlight Archive through] movies. A part of the explanation I fear with streaming is, it’s largely individuals who wish to dual-screen, and epic fantasy simply doesn’t work with dual-screening. Ultimately, I’ll give [adaptation] a attempt, however I wish to study extra first. So my objective is to make some issues that aren’t Stormlight Archive, that aren’t Mistborn. I’m actually excited to make different issues, and make them very well, and check some issues out.
I noticed you’re engaged on an animated model of Tress of the Emerald Sea, which appeared prefer it may be a narrative on a sufficiently small scale that it could possibly be completed individually from a variety of the remainder of your work. If you happen to’re specializing in film diversifications over what must be long-running TV collection, are there different tales you’re feeling are scaled at a feature-length dimension?
You’ll be able to’t actually do Approach of Kings as a movie collection. I’m assured that might be a foul concept. I believe Mistborn may work as a movie collection, notably if we made it in among the methods I want to make it, that I’m making an attempt to speak to Hollywood about. And I believe some issues that might actually work there, however we’ll see what occurs. The streamers are usually not devoted to cinema, for good motive. That’s not the place their market is.
However due to that and the dual-screening, it makes me cautious [to pursue television]. I’m gun-shy about going ahead, and I wish to see how issues stabilize and regular. Perhaps we’ll have a pleasant epic fantasy renaissance in cinema after Easy methods to Practice Your Dragon comes out in reside motion. I’m hopeful it’s going to do very properly, and folks can be like, Yeah! Large fantasy! So who is aware of?
Picture: Dragonsteel Publishing
Hollywood operates a lot round development cycles, and it looks as if we’re dialing down on superheroes, as an example.
Do you ever fear about lacking your second, concerning the post-Sport of Thrones fantasy-TV growth dying down and shifting into one thing else?
Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s an excellent query. Submit Lord of the Rings-era cinema is basically fascinating, as a result of Hollywood didn’t perceive fantasy, and so they picked the mistaken properties to throw their weight behind. We did have a successor to Lord of the Rings: It’s known as The Pirates of the Caribbean. What individuals had been in search of was adult-oriented — not within the “grownup content material” sense, however mature characters and plots like Lord of the Rings had. So The Golden Compass and The Darkish Is Rising and a variety of the YA properties turned out to be the mistaken technique to go, partially as a result of Hollywood’s like, Nicely, we’ll take these and switch them into Lord of the Rings. And it didn’t match the soul of a number of very glorious e book collection, and it didn’t match the market, as a result of the individuals who needed Lord of the Rings didn’t need a YA property.
After which principally Hollywood squandered the chance to have an epic fantasy wave following the success of Lord of the Rings. The closest we now have is the James Cameron Avatar films and Pirates of the Caribbean — proof that folks nonetheless deeply need fantasy epics. Folks have at all times preferred fantasy. I’m not so fearful about lacking my second by being further cautious. If that’s the case, then oh properly. The books are nonetheless there. I’m extra fearful about making the mistaken shot within the mistaken spot, after which it taking 20 extra years to get one other attempt.
Picture: Michael Whelan/Tor Books
Actually, what I need — it’s just a bit factor, just a bit factor — I simply need a genius filmmaker on the extent of Denis Villeneuve, somebody who grew up loving my work [the way Villeneuve loved Frank Herbert’s Dune], and desires to convey it to the display with the combo of constancy and adaptation required to make an awesome epic like Dune. You do have to alter issues [for a screen adaptation], however this filmmaker would actually perceive the property, and have an inventive imaginative and prescient that matches the property.
For epic fantasy and science fiction, we now have hardly ever seen that, nevertheless it occurred with Dune, and it occurred with Lord of the Rings. So hopefully there’s somebody on the market that may work with me to make Mistborn.
Leaving apart every little thing else — funds, adaptation issues, administrators, the platform — in the event you may solely adapt considered one of your initiatives with a assure that it might come out the best way you needed, which story would you most wish to see on the display?
Infinite funds, make it my means? I’d completely decide Stormlight, and I’d do it on one of many streaming providers. With a vast funds and limitless inventive management, I believe I may make one thing actually good. However who is aware of? I imply, Lord of the Rings primarily had that, and it’s not excellent. It’s positive, however is it the factor that you really want? I imply, I actually suppose the important thing member is that visionary filmmaker. Epic fantasy has responded poorly to an excessive amount of oversight from above. I believe that was The Witcher’s downside. You had that visionary: It was Henry Cavill. And so they didn’t wish to take heed to him. So, properly, there you go.
