[QuickTidal]

So Sando has finally agreed to to a deal with a studio (Apple) to make Cosmere stuff....reportedly feature length MISTBORN movies and an SLA TV series.

He said that he has full creative control, more than Rowling or GRRM got over their adaptations. As someone who knows this industry, I'm WILDLY skeptical of this. On paper I'm sure it's fine, in action it's going to look different.

Anyways, I have a few comments.

1. Mistborn as movies is fine. He is allegedly writing the screenplay...which....I'm wary of...in his WOT show roundup videos that he did while that show aired, his instincts for what he felt was wrong were that of a prose writer, not a screenwriter used to that medium...every time. So I don't see him nailing any script unless he's got help AND he's willing to compromise on his prose-author vision VS what will work for a movie. Time will tell.

2. SLA is not adaptable as a live action show. It's not only filled with WAY too much stuff that requires SFX, magic, creatures, Mo-Cap characters, and such...but it takes place on a world that does not exist as ours does and does not operate as ours does, so even the basic backdrop of settings and scenes would need to be "created". The cost of something like that would be IMMENSE. We are talking probably more than Amazon spends on RoP, just to achieve a viable look...and then that cost needs to be upped as the story goes on and things get more intense, and more weird and contain more mo-cap characters and magic and settings...the only way I see SLA being even remotely adaptable is VIA animation. And I've heard whispers that Sanderson had been talking to the crew who made ARCANE (which he truly liked), so that may be the avenue they are looking to take here...but yeah, an SLA live action show feels like a pipe dream, even in Apple's deep pockets.

3. I feel like the best adaptations are often the ones that take some liberties, and keep other things sacrosanct. They find the middle ground that makes the most sense for a TV/movie viewer and move on that. People often hold up LOTR as "adaptation done right"....but lots of Tolkien purists are annoyed by things they left out (Bombadil), or things they changed (Faramir)...but PJ and his wife and fellow writer I think found the best path through it to find the meat of LOTR while changing medium from a books from the 1950's to a movie in the 21st century. The same needs to be true here, but to accomplish that Sanderson is going to need to loosen his grip on the reigns and let Cosmere adapted media be its own thing. I dunno that he has that in him.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Today, 02:07 PM

[worry]

So what are we thinking here? Hugo Weaving as Kelsier and Natalie Portman as Vin?

[Abyss]

worry, on 29 January 2026 - 03:02 PM, said:

So what are we thinking here? Hugo Weaving as Kelsier and Natalie Portman as Vin?

Too old. Ariana Grande is the obvs choice for Vin.

Kelsier, well, Ryan Reynolds of course... having Deadpool play your male lead is a gimme.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

QuickTidal, on 29 January 2026 - 02:06 PM, said:

He said that he has full creative control, more than Rowling or GRRM got over their adaptations. As someone who knows this industry, I'm WILDLY skeptical of this. On paper I'm sure it's fine, in action it's going to look different.

This is where I see this foundering. His expectations vs the realities of the industry. Don't get me wrong, I hope they work everything out (or at least enough of everything to get the shows made) but it's hard to imagine this not ending in him leaving the table in a fury because they don't want to do a word for word exact adaption.

I saw those WoT videos, and he came across overly entitled and as if he felt he obviously knew better and everyone with differing opinions was idiotic - and that wasn't even HIS stuff. The way he came over nearly put me off reading anything of his, I disliked him that much.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: Today, 03:57 PM

[Abyss]

In a producer's shoes i would be suggesting they make an original story in the same general 'Cosmere' setting and stay the hell away from the books. Do a show, on TV terms, write books in it later.

Even the simpler books, Mistborn, Warbreaker, Elantris, are not ripe for adaptation. I don't care what your fx budget is, showing people 'burning metals' or breathing Breaths or drawing pictures is going to be boring, 'inaccurate' to the extent that anyone cares, or just look silly. And if they simplify or adapt it too far the book readers are going to lose their minds.

There's a lesson in WoT and i am doubtful anyone learned it.

[JPK]

Maybe having other people working with him might help trim the bloat from his more recent works. Cause his editor sure isn't doing it anymore.

That said, I don't blame him for fighting for more creative control after what Amazon did to WoT. The bare bones were there but there were so many creative liberties taken by the show runners that caused significant creative shifts.

There's also another great example of that ongoing on HBO with House of the Dragon.

This post has been edited by JPK: Today, 04:11 PM

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 29 January 2026 - 03:56 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 29 January 2026 - 02:06 PM, said:

He said that he has full creative control, more than Rowling or GRRM got over their adaptations. As someone who knows this industry, I'm WILDLY skeptical of this. On paper I'm sure it's fine, in action it's going to look different.

I saw those WoT videos, and he came across overly entitled and as if he felt he obviously knew better and everyone with differing opinions was idiotic - and that wasn't even HIS stuff. The way he came over nearly put me off reading anything of his, I disliked him that much.

Yep, those videos are 100% my touchstone on this. He's going to try swinging his weight around the producers who know more about how this stuff lands and they are going to end-run around him.

At the very LEAST I could see the producers wanting more romantic or sexual stuff than his Mormon-ness will tolerate because hey, sex sells...and I could see them clashing on that.

On the more positive side, I'd love to see someone temper his baser impulses as a writer for dialogue, the relationships and the jokes, and polish them up to a better standard. His books always suffer from a fair amount of bad dialogue and corny ass jokes. So I'd love to see that elevated.

[Chance]

QuickTidal, on 29 January 2026 - 02:06 PM, said:

2. SLA is not adaptable as a live action show.

Have to agree can't see that being a good idea.

It would be awesome as an Arcane style animation or high-grade Anime with a season per book, however.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 29 January 2026 - 04:06 PM, said:

In a producer's shoes i would be suggesting they make an original story in the same general 'Cosmere' setting and stay the hell away from the books. Do a show, on TV terms, write books in it later.

This is a great idea, but since it would not fit neatly into his cosmere ideas he would kibosh it.

JPK, on 29 January 2026 - 04:09 PM, said:

Maybe having other people working with him might help trim the bloat from his more recent works. Cause his editor sure isn't doing it anymore.

So this has a reason. The person who edited WoK, WoR, and Oathbringer (and everything Sando wrote until then) Moshe Feder retired in 2020, so the last two books were edited by someone else who lets Sanderson drone on FAR more than he should.

JPK, on 29 January 2026 - 04:09 PM, said:

That said, I don't blame him for fighting for more creative control after what Amazon did to WoT. The bare bones were there but there were so many creative liberties taken by the show runners that caused significant creative shifts.

See, my view of it (as someone who felt the books were far too bloated) comes from my wife who knew nothing of WOT books...but ADORED the TV show and could not wait to watch week to week and was devastated when they cancelled it...that casual audience loving your show is SO much more important than pleasing only books fans. And as someone who read those books, I thought all the decisions they made from S2 onwards were solid creative changes. Shrug.

[JPK]

QuickTidal, on 29 January 2026 - 04:17 PM, said:

JPK, on 29 January 2026 - 04:09 PM, said:

Maybe having other people working with him might help trim the bloat from his more recent works. Cause his editor sure isn't doing it anymore.

So this has a reason. The person who edited WoK, WoR, and Oathbringer (and everything Sando wrote until then) Moshe Feder retired in 2020, so the last two books were edited by someone else who lets Sanderson drone on FAR more than he should.

JPK, on 29 January 2026 - 04:09 PM, said:

That said, I don't blame him for fighting for more creative control after what Amazon did to WoT. The bare bones were there but there were so many creative liberties taken by the show runners that caused significant creative shifts.

See, my view of it (as someone who felt the books were far too bloated) comes from my wife who knew nothing of WOT books...but ADORED the TV show and could not wait to watch week to week and was devastated when they cancelled it...that casual audience loving your show is SO much more important than pleasing only books fans. And as someone who read those books, I thought all the decisions they made from S2 onwards were solid creative changes. Shrug.

1 - I knew something had changed with the editing but this makes a lot of sense. But again, hopefully working with screenwriter's and producers will help reign him in a bit regarding his worst tendencies.

2 - I hear you regarding the casual audience vs the die hard argument. I do. That said, you can tread a finer line with those changes and manage to make most people happy. (Never gonna get everyone). I think most of us here can agree that Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the greatest adaptations to be made to this day. Part of the reason why is because they stayed to close to the source material. They had a great story to begin with and the popularity of the series is where a lot of your fanbase is going to come from. Now, that's not saying that LotR didn't take creative liberties, cause they did. Tom Bombadil and Faromir both immediately come to mind. However, neither of those changes significantly changed the underlying source. Bombadil's removal streamlined the story by sacrificing world building that wasn't strictly necessary to the direct story being told and Faromir's story still works.

I just have a hard time with how a lot of adaptations seemingly have the hubris of "I like what you did, and so do thousands of other people, but let's make it better." And it's very rare that the outcome is greater than what they started with.

[QuickTidal]

JPK, on 29 January 2026 - 04:38 PM, said:

I just have a hard time with how a lot of adaptations seemingly have the hubris of "I like what you did, and so do thousands of other people, but let's make it better." And it's very rare that the outcome is greater than what they started with.

Indeed, I just don't know that anyone involved in WOT said "I want to make this better" more than "We need to change this to approach a general television audience better" and those decisions didn't perhaps land with book purists. Like pulling out of Rand having a fawning harem and giving relationships to other characters (like Min) or moreso to like Aviendha and Elaine, while focusing on his romantic relationship with Egwene breaking down juxtaposed against his attempts to distance and disconnect from his traditional connecting Lanfear...just made for more compelling TV than Rand has a harem of women who all want his bod.

But yes, it could definitely have been a bit closer to the source material, that said I felt it got cancelled just as it was really ramping up into solid storytelling mode that would be closer as I feel S3 really nailed a lot of the core of what WOT is about.