The details just keep coming for Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere adaptation. Last week we learned that Apple TV had contracted with Sanderson to develop his interconnected fantasy universe for the screen, with two initial projects in the works: a movie based on Sanderson's Mistborn books, and a television show based on The Stormlight Archive.
Since then Sanderson has confirmed that he is writing the screenplay for the Mistborn film, which will most likely adapt only the first of his book series, Mistborn: The Final Empire. He's also learning from the examples of series like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies and HBO's Game of Thrones for the Stormlight show.
Now, we've gotten another exciting update straight from Sanderson himself in his most recent weekly YouTube update, which is all about this Hollywood deal. It turns out Sanderson is going to be more than just a little involved in The Stormlight Archive show; he'll be a showrunner on the series.
Apple and Sanderson are "hunting" for a co-showrunner for The Stormlight Archive
In this update, Sanderson recounted his trip to Hollywood last May, where he met with the heads of pretty much every major studio in town as he shopped around the Cosmere adaptations rights. Eventually, he landed at Apple, thanks to their willingness to engage with him on the property as a true partner.
Sanderson notes that while Apple has secured the rights to produce the Cosmere at large, he and the studio are primarily focused on his two largest properties as a way to kick it off: Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive.
"Our goal right now is to do Mistborn still as a feature and Stormlight as a premium cable streaming show. That could change, as these things happen, as we work and develop these things," he said. "But I get to write the screenplay for Mistborn, and I will be showrunner on the Stormlight show. Not the sole showrunner. I will be co-showrunning with someone, so we're going to be hunting down that person."
Sanderson warns fans that this will "impact" his writing schedule, though "not to the point that I think you need to worry." He still expects to release Mistborn Era 3, Ghostbloods, on the same time table he'd already set up, beginning with the first book in 2028; as for Stormlight, he's already on hiatus with that series because of Ghostbloods, so this will be to the Apple adaptation's benefit. But he'll be writing the Mistborn screenplay over the next six or so months, which will obviously delay his writing on the second Ghostbloods book until he's finished.
It's all in service of devoting some true time and attention to the adaptations, and "making sure these things come out right." Sanderson has been down this road before, but none of his previous adaptation deals have ever borne fruit. "This feels really different this time," he said.
Is Brandon Sanderson being a showrunner on The Stormlight Archive show a good thing?
So that's the update from Sanderson, and obviously, any time a studio wants to keep the original creator involved to this extent it's exciting. But I won't lie, Sanderson serving as a showrunner on The Stormlight Archive show also has me a little wary.
A showrunner is essentially the overall boss of a television series, in charge of overseeing all the different departments from writing to costuming to props and stunts and more. Each of those individual departments have their own managers, but all roads eventually lead to the showrunner for final approvals.
On the one hand, Sanderson being involved in such a hands-on capacity is fantastic On the other, being a showrunner is a 24/7 kind of job that is extremely demanding, and that's cause for concern for a few reasons. Sanderson may have experience running a company thanks to his own Dragonsteel Books that is pretty much unparalleled among authors, but that's still quite different from the demanding production deadlines and controlled chaos that often comes with running a television show. There's a reason George R.R. Martin did not push to have that role on either Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, and that's because it is consuming.
It's also just a very different skillset than anything Sanderson has done. He's a master storyteller, and that means that when it comes to something like writing the Mistborn screenplay, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt that he can figure it out — especially since he's been practicing screenplay writing in recent years to prepare for exactly this sort of opportunity. I have faith he can figure out story-related issues as well as the best of them.
But does he have any experience managing a stunts department? Visual effects? A writer's room or costume department or location scouting? Not that I can tell, though again, he does have some substantial business management experience from his own endeavors. It doesn't necessarily mean Sanderson can't learn the nuances for all of these film-specific tasks, but if Stormlight is going to be a production at the level it needs to in order to tackle such an ambitious work, it'll need an experienced hand as well.
Hopefully this is where the second showrunner comes in. With any luck, this will turn out to be a situation like The Last of Us, where original video game creator Neil Druckmann served as a co-showrunner alongside Craig Mazin, who had a ton of experience and was responsible for the hit series Chernobyl for HBO. Sanderson needs his own Craig Mazin if this Stormlight show is going to take off as well as it could, someone who can meet him on even footing and keep the production side of the process running smoothly, while Sanderson gives insights that only he can give into the story side of things.
Whenever he and Apple do settle on a co-showrunner, it's going to give us a much clearer picture of what to expect for the series. But for now, the priority is Mistborn. Sanderson will be writing that screenplay until summer 2026; you can follow along with his progress via his YouTube updates or the progress bar on his website.