Apple Adapting Brandon Sanderson’s Fantasy Cosmere Novels

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Popular fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is bringing his epic Cosmere universe to the screen. Apple TV has secured the rights to adapt his novels, and Sanderson will have significant creative control over the project – more than many other successful authors like George R.R. Martin have with their adaptations. Plans are underway to develop the Mistborn series as a film and The Stormlight Archive as a television show, with Sanderson writing, producing, and having final say on all creative decisions.

Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books are set across numerous worlds and time periods. The story revolves around Adolnasium, a supremely powerful being who is assassinated. His power fragments into sixteen pieces, called shards, which are then scattered throughout the universe and manifest as different types of magic. The first book in the Mistborn series, The Final Empire, was published in 2006, followed by seven more novels. Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive began in 2010 with The Way of Kings, and has since grown to include five books, the most recent of which came out in 2024. Sanderson also famously completed Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series after Jordan’s death.

Adapting large fantasy book series into TV shows is often a gamble, even when the books are incredibly popular. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, a huge fantasy franchise, only lasted three seasons on Prime Video and didn’t even cover all the material from the first book. While The Hunger Games proved successful, the Divergent series serves as a warning. However, Apple TV has the financial resources to support a long-running franchise if the show is well-made. Currently, there’s no news about when production will start on these Cosmere projects, or who else will be working on them, but we anticipate an update soon.

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2026-01-29 01:32