8 stories from Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere we need adapted onscreen

Elantris

While Elantris wasn’t the first book Sanderson wrote in his Cosmere, it was the first one published. It served as an entry point for many readers, and it’d make a pretty solid entry point for moviegoers, too. Elantris is a standalone fantasy novel which contains all the elements that make the author’s works so good, including great characters, an intricate plot, solid worldbuilding and inventive magic. But since it’s a standalone, it’s also decidedly easier to digest than some of his longer, more ambitious series.

The premise is that the magical city of Elantris (think Atlantis) was once populated by people with immense magical powers: the Elantrians. Anyone could become an Elantrian, though no one knew exactly how. But at some point, this magical empowerment became a curse; instead of gaining immense magic powers, people were afflicted by a debilitating magical disease.

From that point on, the city of Elantris became a quarantine zone, and anyone unfortunate enough to wake up one day and find themselves afflicted with the curse was banished there. The novel begins with Raoden, the crown prince of the nation of Arelon, awakening to find himself so afflicted. He’s banished to Elantris mere days before his betrothed from a neighboring nation, Sarene, arrives to cement a political marriage between their two peoples.

The gradually unraveling mystery of why Elantris fell and how it might one day rise again is a compelling political struggle. Elantris could work really well on the screen, and since it’s only one book long (though Sanderson has said he plans to one day write a sequel), it’d make a very solid movie or miniseries.