Sanderson's Misguided Reluctance to Do Animated Adaptions

[rhythm_of_blues_brothers]

 

Now that I have a nice dramatic thread title, here goes...

I watched the "State of the Sanderson 2025", and suspect Sanderson is wrong about his reluctance to adapt his books with animation.  There's the comments around ~13 minutes into the video. Then there's this quote from ScreenRant (https://screenrant.com/stormlight-archive-wind-truth-animated-adaptation-convincing-op-ed/#:~:text=Brandon Sanderson's State of Sanderson,fantasy series is much smaller.) :

"Do Way of Kings as animated!" While I'm not opposed to the idea (I think a good animated version could be done), if we made an animated version of Stormlight Archive, it would play only to our fans, and to animation fans, perhaps. It would not gain a larger audience. The unfortunate truth is that animation for adults does not gain audience, right now. So we could do a cool one just for the fans, I'm not saying no to that."

With all that in mind, I'm suspecting that Sanderson is being misled by some Hollywood conventional-wisdom about "animation is for kids" and possibly some other reasons Hollywood might look down on animation (totally guessing here, but again, I suspect this is the case). Anyway, digging into the "State of the Sanderson 2025" and the quote from Screenrant: 

Why is a big budget necessary for animation? Would it really cost so much to hire a bunch of no-name voice actors and do a 2D animation with a decent art style? Maybe this reflects what I don't know about budgets? If this is about income, isn't Sanderson rich enough already?  I think Sanderson is wrong about anticipating that animation won't get a large audience beyond the existing fans. I also suspect he's searching for latent fans in the wrong places (i.e people who watch 'serious' hollywood movies and live-action prestige TV). I think he needs to stop trying to imagine cosmere works being some kind of "Game of Thrones 2.0" that attracts a bunch of normies to watch a fantasy show, and instead start envisioning an animation audience as a combination of the existing animation audiences plus some newcomers: i.e the existing cosmere fan-base, weebs who didn't read Sanderson but will probably watch a cosmere TV show, the Avatar-world fan-base, normie parents who see Cosmere stuff that their kids are watching and start watching it themselves...and maybe some other folks I haven't thought of?  Addressing the canard of animation&comics not being seen as "serious", I suspect the 2020s/30s might be a decade where a lot of people might be willing to let go of that myth.  Sanderson mentioned "Arcane". Is he aware of the existence of: Ghibli films, Persepolis, Flee, Apollo 10 1/2, Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Triplets of Belleville? Who has Sanderson approached about animated adaption? Has he talked to any Anime people?

Finally, here's my personal opinions on how all of the cosmere (that I know of so far) should be adapted:

Stormlight: needs to be animated. Spren, Shadesmar, Spiritual Realm, plants outside of Shinovar, Parshendi/Singers/Fused. It should be animated. PERIOD. I'm partial to an 'anime-inspired-western-animation', but that's just a personal preference.  Mistborn: more plausible as live-action than Stormlight, but I think it would still be better as animation.  Tress: needs to be animation, and apparently that's what Sanderson is going for. Good.  Yumi: animation, or maybe "space-jam-style" with the 'nightmares' and spirits animated but the people and setting live-action.  Warbreaker: relatively-plausible as live-action. Almost all of it takes place in one city, I'm guessing that the magic effects would be relatively doable in live-action. Sunlit Man: animation.  Elantris: I think animation would be better, but might be doable as live-action. Mostly-takes-place-in-one-setting, but I suspect the magic effects (including the appearance of pre-restoration Elantrians) would be more difficult to do well as live-action vs Warbreaker.

Finally: does anyone know if there are other sources for relatively-recent remarks Sanderson has made about how he wants to do adaptions? 

 

Edited December 28, 2025 by rhythm_of_blues_brothers

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

Fantasy, in general, is more suited to animation than to live action, but the kind of animation that would suit it simply is not made any more and will never be made again.

Honestly, I'm kind of cheesed at mister Sanderson for even considering adaptations, as though the books weren't good enough on their own, as though they needed to be improved.

[rhythm_of_blues_brothers]

24 minutes ago, rhythm_of_blues_brothers said:

 

Now that I have a nice dramatic thread title, here goes...

I watched the "State of the Sanderson 2025", and suspect Sanderson is wrong about his reluctance to adapt his books with animation.  There's the comments around ~13 minutes into the video. Then there's this quote from ScreenRant (https://screenrant.com/stormlight-archive-wind-truth-animated-adaptation-convincing-op-ed/#:~:text=Brandon Sanderson's State of Sanderson,fantasy series is much smaller.) :

"Do Way of Kings as animated!" While I'm not opposed to the idea (I think a good animated version could be done), if we made an animated version of Stormlight Archive, it would play only to our fans, and to animation fans, perhaps. It would not gain a larger audience. The unfortunate truth is that animation for adults does not gain audience, right now. So we could do a cool one just for the fans, I'm not saying no to that."

With all that in mind, I'm suspecting that Sanderson is being misled by some Hollywood conventional-wisdom about "animation is for kids" and possibly some other reasons Hollywood might look down on animation (totally guessing here, but again, I suspect this is the case). Anyway, digging into the "State of the Sanderson 2025" and the quote from Screenrant: 

Why is a big budget necessary for animation? Would it really cost so much to hire a bunch of no-name voice actors and do a 2D animation with a decent art style? Maybe this reflects what I don't know about budgets? If this is about income, isn't Sanderson rich enough already?  I think Sanderson is wrong about anticipating that animation won't get a large audience beyond the existing fans. I also suspect he's searching for latent fans in the wrong places (i.e people who watch 'serious' hollywood movies and live-action prestige TV). I think he needs to stop trying to imagine cosmere works being some kind of "Game of Thrones 2.0" that attracts a bunch of normies to watch a fantasy show, and instead start envisioning an animation audience as a combination of the existing animation audiences plus some newcomers: i.e the existing cosmere fan-base, weebs who didn't read Sanderson but will probably watch a cosmere TV show, the Avatar-world fan-base, normie parents who see Cosmere stuff that their kids are watching and start watching it themselves...and maybe some other folks I haven't thought of?  Addressing the canard of animation&comics not being seen as "serious", I suspect the 2020s/30s might be a decade where a lot of people might be willing to let go of that myth.  Sanderson mentioned "Arcane". Is he aware of the existence of: Ghibli films, Persepolis, Flee, Apollo 10 1/2, Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Triplets of Belleville? Who has Sanderson approached about animated adaption? Has he talked to any Anime people?

Finally, here's my personal opinions on how all of the cosmere (that I know of so far) should be adapted:

Stormlight: needs to be animated. Spren, Shadesmar, Spiritual Realm, plants outside of Shinovar, Parshendi/Singers/Fused. It should be animated. PERIOD. I'm partial to an 'anime-inspired-western-animation', but that's just a personal preference.  Mistborn: more plausible as live-action than Stormlight, but I think it would still be better as animation.  Tress: needs to be animation, and apparently that's what Sanderson is going for. Good.  Yumi: animation, or maybe "space-jam-style" with the 'nightmares' and spirits animated but the people and setting live-action.  Warbreaker: relatively-plausible as live-action. Almost all of it takes place in one city, I'm guessing that the magic effects would be relatively doable in live-action. Sunlit Man: animation.  Elantris: I think animation would be better, but might be doable as live-action. Mostly-takes-place-in-one-setting, but I suspect the magic effects (including the appearance of pre-restoration Elantrians) would be more difficult to do well as live-action vs Warbreaker.

Finally: does anyone know if there are other sources for relatively-recent remarks Sanderson has made about how he wants to do adaptions? 

 

Also, in case anyone is wondering, I'd like to note: No I didn't underline this entire post on purpose. I don't know exactly why it has that format now and I can't figure out how to edit it out, and I'm too lazy to contact the "17th Shard Tech Support"-or-equivalent about it. 

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

7 minutes ago, rhythm_of_blues_brothers said:

Also, in case anyone is wondering, I'd like to note: No I didn't underline this entire post on purpose. I don't know exactly why it has that format now and I can't figure out how to edit it out, and I'm too lazy to contact the "17th Shard Tech Support"-or-equivalent about it. 

Honestly, it's neat, and I like it that way.

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, rhythm_of_blues_brothers said:

Why is a big budget necessary for animation? Would it really cost so much to hire a bunch of no-name voice actors and do a 2D animation with a decent art style? Maybe this reflects what I don't know about budgets?

I wouldn't say that a big budget is required, exactly, but it makes a big difference. There's also an element of how much it costs to develop, produce, and distribute any sort of television show or movie-- "low budget" usually still reflects a lot of money. I've been a fan of animation for over 30 years and I can confidently tell you that yes, it really could cost "so much" to do 2D animation with a "decent" art style. I've seen many animations and it can be obvious where the lack of budget shows through. Low budgets also force a lot of tradeoffs, like compressing characters or events into fewer episodes or leaving them out entirely, more reuse of shots/animations, less detail in artwork, fewer frames and so lower-quality animation, worse or less music, less capable writing, and so many others. Bigger budgets don't guarantee that everything will be great but less money can force a lot of issues that otherwise wouldn't be there.

Cheap voice actors are often not very good (that's why they're cheap), though of course not everyone will like or dislike given voice actors in specific roles. A poorly chosen cast tends to ruin an animated work for me, even if the show is otherwise one I like.

It's also a ton of work to create a show or movie from start to finish, and the upfront money to do it has to come from somewhere. Making money off of an animated show or movie is also a lot different than it used to be before streaming and is a lot more tenuous. Different groups financing shows can sometimes impose weird conditions which may force additional production issues or alter the work in ways the creator and fans may not like. There are a lot of moving parts, and Sanderson already has a decent amount of experience with trying to adapt some of his works (the ever-promised Mistborn movie). If he's not excited nor confident about doing an animation I would wager that's based on his actual experience and not some random idea or bias he has.

I'm very sympathetic to wanting adaptations of books I love. But over my life I've also seen a lot of adaptations that I thought were not very good, and I'd rather have no adaptation than a bad one that I don't enjoy. A Way of Kings show that is cheap in animation, art, voice cast, and music, which doesn't really follow the books' plot nor capture the details that make me like the book in the first place isn't a show that I want at all. Especially since a "bad" and poorly received adaptation might make it less likely that any additional adaptations might be attempted, so the bad one is the only one that will ever exist.

I would love to have great Cosmere adaptations. But the quality of the product is a necessary element to me. I've had far too much experience with adaptations that offer little beyond the franchise name to push or demand. It's very monkey's paw.

[rhythm_of_blues_brothers]

2 hours ago, Returned said:

I would love to have great Cosmere adaptations. But the quality of the product is a necessary element to me. I've had far too much experience with adaptations that offer little beyond the franchise name to push or demand. It's very monkey's paw.

Hey, I'll second that I'd much rather see good adaptions than crappy or even ok-enough ones. And I wouldn't be too surprised if the Cosmere books never ultimately get adapted. 

 

Edited December 28, 2025 by rhythm_of_blues_brothers

[Qianweilian He/him]

5 hours ago, rhythm_of_blues_brothers said:

Hey, I'll second that I'd much rather see good adaptions than crappy or even ok-enough ones. And I wouldn't be too surprised if the Cosmere books never ultimately get adapted. 

Yeah, I'd prefer we don't get stormlight adapted into something like the wot show.