Brandon Sanderson Reveals Why He Talked Apple Out Of Launching Its Cosmere Deal With ‘Stormlight Archive’
Fantasy readers have been riding an emotional rollercoaster ever since word broke that Brandon Sanderson’s sprawling Cosmere universe was headed to the screen. The scale of the deal alone made headlines, with Apple TV described as landing an unprecedented arrangement to secure the rights to Sanderson’s fictional literary universe. For a fanbase that has watched other beloved book series struggle in translation, every new detail about how Apple plans to handle the material carries real weight.
That deal set two major projects in motion, with Mistborn earmarked for a feature film franchise and ‘The Stormlight Archive’ set to become a television series. Sanderson has since taken on an unusually hands on role in both, personally writing the Mistborn screenplay while also serving as a driving creative force behind the Stormlight adaptation.
Now, according to a post from the fan account Cosmere Updates, Sanderson has shared a new wrinkle in how that plan came together. Per the account, Apple was reportedly eager to launch its fantasy slate with a premium ‘Stormlight Archive’ show first, but Sanderson pushed back and convinced the streamer to start with ‘Mistborn’ instead, arguing it would help build trust, grow the audience, and secure a bigger budget before tackling his more ambitious series. The post adds that Apple is “really excited” about the eventual Stormlight show.
That sequencing tracks with what Sanderson has said publicly about his priorities. He has confirmed that finishing the Mistborn screenplay comes first, with the Stormlight pilot only beginning once that script is turned in, and he has described wanting to personally write a substantial chunk of the first season himself rather than handing the whole thing off to other writers, as detailed in an update shared to his YouTube channel.
The stakes for getting the sequencing right are enormous. ‘The Stormlight Archive’ is being built as a ten episode first season, with Sanderson confirming during a recent conversation alongside fellow author Joe Abercrombie that he will be the lead writer on the show in addition to his work on Mistborn. The source novels themselves are famously dense, with the first book, ‘The Way of Kings,’ running well over a thousand pages and centering on a world reshaped by catastrophic magical storms.
Sanderson has been candid about why he wants Apple to walk before it runs. He has pointed to recent fantasy adaptations that stumbled under the weight of their own ambition, arguing that streaming has struggled with epic fantasy and citing shows that failed to live up to their source material as cautionary tales. Building goodwill and viewership with the more contained ‘Mistborn’ story, in that light, reads less like a delay tactic and more like careful franchise architecture.
For a project this closely guarded by its own author, the idea that Sanderson personally steered Apple away from leading with its biggest swing says a lot about how much control he actually has here. It also raises the stakes for ‘Mistborn’ itself, since its performance may now shape how much room ‘The Stormlight Archive’ ultimately gets. Do you think starting with ‘Mistborn’ first is the smarter move for building Apple’s Cosmere universe, or would you rather have seen ‘The Stormlight Archive’ lead the charge?
