Cosmere Adaptation Announcement

[Myst He/Him]

How will the mental illness themes and others like that manifest in the screen adaptations, how much internal conflict will have to be sacrificed for it?

I don’t think this is it either, I’ll try again

[RedBlue]

1 hour ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

I guess the gist is in my posts in this and the last two pages with regards to the applicability and accessibility of the work as LDS fiction and as representation and with interpretation and whether or not I'm allowed to be a Cosmere fan in the same way that the people who get direct and explicit representation are, and that WOB about how he said it's okay to interpret the work the way I do but I don't know if that will apply to the new one.

How about this: “Era 1 avoids alienating LDS members with conservative values, for example by keeping Vin and Elend’s sexual relationship ambiguous until after they get married. Will this carry over to the movies? And if not, is there anything you would like to say to LDS fans who feel alienated by the new version?”

(I won’t be around for the stream, so somebody else will have to ask)

(Also, is Vin and Elend’s sexual status the main point of concern here, or am I missing the wood for the trees?)

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

28 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

How about this: “Era 1 avoids alienating LDS members with conservative values, for example by keeping Vin and Elend’s sexual relationship ambiguous until after they get married. Will this carry over to the movies? And if not, is there anything you would like to say to LDS fans who feel alienated by the new version?”

(I won’t be around for the stream, so somebody else will have to ask)

(Also, is Vin and Elend’s sexual status the main point of concern here, or am I missing the wood for the trees?)

I like this, but I worry that the phrasing "conservative values" opens up a massive can of worms with regards to politics and might imply a position very far from my own (my view is that the Cosmere is for everybody and representation is good, and that the part of "everybody" which includes me is represented in the original Mistborn trilogy).

Changing, say, Clubs' gender/race/age/demographic?  No problem.  Having Clubs drop an f-bomb?  No bueno.

It's not so much "avoids alienating" as much as it is "gives deeply appreciated (if understated and existing only through interpretation) representation of".

Vin and Elend's relationship is the main concern, but I'd honestly be :( about Spook and Beldre or a flashback to Kelsier and Mare if it confirmed that kind of thing.  The contrast between the heroes and the villains is heightened, I think, if the heroes do things the traditional "skaa" way of fidelity in marriage and abstinence outside of it which Tindwyl mentions in book 2.

Edited January 30 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[RedBlue]

1 hour ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

It's not so much "avoids alienating" as much as it is "gives deeply appreciated (if understated and existing only through interpretation) representation of".

I’m a bit confused about what you mean by ‘representation.’ None of the characters can be interpreted as LDS members, and the LDS faith doesn’t exist within the cosmere as a concept, so I’m not sure where you’re seeing representation in the books.

Is it that the characters (the ‘good guys’) live in line with LDS values as you see them? Can you describe what, specifically, those values are? I’m a bit lost because as I see it, the ‘good guys’ in these books have little to no alignment with Christianity/LDS on the morality of big ticket items like killing, stealing, or lying.

Does representation, for you, come down to the couples performing a ceremony before being physically intimate? Because if that’s the case, you can just ask “Will the movies still have Vin and Elend’s sexual relationship be ambiguous until they get married?”

[Schizoposting]

There's an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen anyone mention—suppose that the Mistborn film is an excellent adaptation that not only preserves, but also improves upon, the source material; wouldn't this result in it supplanting the original?

For example, in this hypothetical, if someone new to the Cosmere asks whether or not they should read TFE, people will just tell them to watch the film instead, because it's just the better version. Even if the film isn't substantially better than the novel, as long as it's good adaptation, it'll probably replace the original in public consciousness, simply because films are a lot more popular (and accessible) than books.

I like watching films and reading books, so this doesn't particularly bother me; but I suspect that a lot of the purists here are going to be very annoyed by all the "normie" fans who will only watch the films/television but will refuse to read the books.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

5 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

There's an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen anyone mention—suppose that the Mistborn film is an excellent adaptation that not only preserves, but also improves upon, the source material; wouldn't this result in it supplanting the original?

For example, in this hypothetical, if someone new to the Cosmere asks whether or not they should read TFE, people will just tell them to watch the film instead, because it's just the better version. Even if the film isn't substantially better than the novel, as long as it's good adaptation, it'll probably replace the original in public consciousness, simply because films are a lot more popular (and accessible) than books.

I like watching films and reading books, so this doesn't particularly bother me; but I suspect that a lot of the purists here are going to be very annoyed by all the "normie" fans who will only watch the films/television but will refuse to read the books.

Like others have said, the film-only people could be locked up in their own subforum where no one else is bothered.

[Schizoposting]

6 minutes ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren said:

Like others have said, the film-only people could be locked up in their own subforum where no one else is bothered.

I am not (solely) talking about this forum, but about the fandom as a whole.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

2 hours ago, RedBlue said:

I’m a bit confused about what you mean by ‘representation.’ None of the characters can be interpreted as LDS members, and the LDS faith doesn’t exist within the cosmere as a concept, so I’m not sure where you’re seeing representation in the books.

Is it that the characters (the ‘good guys’) live in line with LDS values as you see them? Can you describe what, specifically, those values are? I’m a bit lost because as I see it, the ‘good guys’ in these books have little to no alignment with Christianity/LDS on the morality of big ticket items like killing, stealing, or lying.

Does representation, for you, come down to the couples performing a ceremony before being physically intimate? Because if that’s the case, you can just ask “Will the movies still have Vin and Elend’s sexual relationship be ambiguous until they get married?”

What I don't have a good word for and (probably confusingly) call "representation" isn't just about the characters.  It's about the world, the worldview, the tone, the story.  In my interpretation...It's about being in a horrible world and not being of that world, it's about the sacred duty to preserve the memory of the past, Sazed's search for the long-lost true religion among all the various teachings and faiths, about how all these freaking authority figures react to any violence with a kajillion times more violence, about a city trying to survive when opposition is on all sides, about how the world is so much worse than it ought to be, than it was created, than it will be when all is made right.  It's about divine plans made before the creation of the world.  It's about ancient truth written in metal, about whether the new faith survives its mortal leader's death, about how man can become divine, where resilience through trials is both living another gosh-darn day and a holy principle, It's about living in a world about to end.  The "vibes" are representative.

And part of that, yes, is the kind of vibes where it can be believable that teenagers in love can choose to be chaste.

The characters experience traumas that resonate with the historical traumas of the faith, survive them (or die that others might survive) through embodying principles of love, faith, resilience, resourcefulness, and hope which resonate for much the same reason, and wrestle with the anxieties of constancy and change both being divine aspects of the spirit (a paradox where the keeping of the past is paramount but improvement and progression are, too).

To be glib, the characters are "LDS-coded" in my (rather isolate) opinion, and I think that was, if not a reading intended by the author, at least a reading allowed by the author, and my question is "will the movies allow this interpretation, or will they stick to the author's preferred interpretation?"

Edited January 30 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

Just now, Schizoposting said:

I am not (solely) talking about this forum, but about the fandom as a whole.

Ah

Well, us Sanderfans are only concentrated in a few key places

The discord could have a similar solution to the forums

And I'm not really familiar with anywhere else where there are a lot of Sanderfans...

[Schizoposting]

7 minutes ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren said:

And I'm not really familiar with anywhere else where there are a lot of Sanderfans...

...Reddit?

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

1 minute ago, Schizoposting said:

...Reddit?

Reddit?  I haven't even seen it.  (ba-dum-tish!)

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

1 minute ago, Schizoposting said:

...Reddit?

Oh

I am not familiar with Reddit, I don't know what can be done there.

[Schizoposting]

23 minutes ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren said:

Oh

I am not familiar with Reddit, I don't know what can be done there.

It's basically a forum that allows people to create their own subtopics, that other people can post in, and that's moderated by the users. The specific Reddit subforum(s) that are oriented towards Brandon and the Cosmere, are orders of magnitude more popular than this one.

Edit: Brandon is also apparently popular on "BookTok" and "BookTube"

Edited January 30 by Schizoposting

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

9 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

It's basically a forum that allows people to create their own subtopics, that other people can post in, and that's moderated by the users. The specific Reddit subforum(s) that are oriented towards Brandon and the Cosmere, are orders of magnitude more popular than this one.

Edit: Brandon is also apparently popular on "BookTok" and "BookTube"

Ah

Yeah I think that might be impacted

Same with YT

[Nesh he/him]

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

There's an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen anyone mention—suppose that the Mistborn film is an excellent adaptation that not only preserves, but also improves upon, the source material; wouldn't this result in it supplanting the original?

For example, in this hypothetical, if someone new to the Cosmere asks whether or not they should read TFE, people will just tell them to watch the film instead, because it's just the better version. Even if the film isn't substantially better than the novel, as long as it's good adaptation, it'll probably replace the original in public consciousness, simply because films are a lot more popular (and accessible) than books.

I like watching films and reading books, so this doesn't particularly bother me; but I suspect that a lot of the purists here are going to be very annoyed by all the "normie" fans who will only watch the films/television but will refuse to read the books.

The odds of an adaptation being so good that it completely supplants the books is vanishingly small.  I have hope that it'll be good, but stuff is going have to but cut and Brandon has already talked about changes he wants to make.  With how loved these books are, I don't see them pulling a The Princess Bride.  It's not like new people don't get into the Lord of the Rings books every year.

Edited January 30 by Nesh

[SheepAreFluffy]

Random thought that occurs to me: some way down the road, this opens up the possibility that we get yet another edition of White Sand, because three prose versions and two comics versions just isn't enough. For maximum cursedness, I'm just going to assume that there will be a movie and then a director's cut of the movie, and a screenplay, and then maybe a video game...

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

There's an interesting possibility that I haven't really seen anyone mention—suppose that the Mistborn film is an excellent adaptation that not only preserves, but also improves upon, the source material; wouldn't this result in it supplanting the original?

Fandom will change, for sure. In addition to what others have already said, I foresee a change to fanfiction and fanart, to conventions and other in-person events, to the sort of questions Sanderson gets asked at Q&As, etc. But even as someone who doesn't care much for screen adaptations, I'm not really worried. People will still be out there engaging in fan activity that is specific to the books. They might be a bit harder to find, but they aren't going to go away entirely.

[Schizoposting]

57 minutes ago, Nesh said:

The odds of an adaptation being so good that it completely supplants the books is vanishingly small.  

TFE was Brandon's second published book, and while the concept is great, the actual execution isn't the best—a film adaption would negate the issues with the prose and dialogue, whilst (potentially) streamlining and improving the plot. While some purists may prefer the books, if the films end up being better, then the former will be overshadowed by the latter.

1 hour ago, Nesh said:

I have hope that it'll be good, but stuff is going have to but cut and Brandon has already talked about changes he wants to make.

I also used to think that a film adaptation should be 100% faithful to the source; but overtime I realized that film is a fundamentally different medium, and that what works in a book, doesn't necessarily work in film. To put it bluntly: faithfulness to original doesn't matter; what matters is how good the film is. That's why Starship Troopers is a great adaptation, even though it's incredibly unfaithful.

1 hour ago, Nesh said:

With how loved these books are, I don't see them pulling a The Princess Bride.  It's not like new people don't get into the Lord of the Rings books every year.

I mean, I've watched three different films that are adapted from Stephen King's book's (The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile), and I've yet to read a single one of them. Most people are not going to read a book when they've already watched a film with the same basic story unless if the books are substantially better/different. (As an aside, I think that LOTR is a lot better than the adaptation, but that's a discussion for another day.)

31 minutes ago, SheepAreFluffy said:

Fandom will change, for sure. In addition to what others have already said, I foresee a change to fanfiction and fanart, to conventions and other in-person events, to the sort of questions Sanderson gets asked at Q&As, etc. But even as someone who doesn't care much for screen adaptations, I'm not really worried. People will still be out there engaging in fan activity that is specific to the books. They might be a bit harder to find, but they aren't going to go away entirely.

I wonder to what extent Brandon is going to be associated with the films—Game of Thrones was a massive sensation, and yet George R. R. Martin isn't that well known. I guess it'll depend on the marketing and branding. Also, I don't think that there'll be much theorizing in the casual film/television watching community, since all the answers will already be in the books. So, that aspect will probably decrease in importance in the fandom.

[Nesh he/him]

28 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

TFE was Brandon's second published book, and while the concept is great, the actual execution isn't the best—a film adaption would negate the issues with the prose and dialogue, whilst (potentially) streamlining and improving the plot. While some purists may prefer the books, if the films end up being better, then the former will be overshadowed by the latter.

I also used to think that a film adaptation should be 100% faithful to the source; but overtime I realized that film is a fundamentally different medium, and that what works in a book, doesn't necessarily work in film. To put it bluntly: faithfulness to original doesn't matter; what matters is how good the film is. That's why Starship Troopers is a great adaptation, even though it's incredibly unfaithful.

I mean, I've watched three different films that are adapted from Stephen King's book's (The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile), and I've yet to read a single one of them. Most people are not going to read a book when they've already watched a film with the same basic story unless if the books are substantially better/different. (As an aside, I think that LOTR is a lot better than the adaptation, but that's a discussion for another day.)

I wonder to what extent Brandon is going to be associated with the films—Game of Thrones was a massive sensation, and yet George R. R. Martin isn't that well known. I guess it'll depend on the marketing and branding. Also, I don't think that there'll be much theorizing in the casual film/television watching community, since all the answers will already be in the books. So, that aspect will probably decrease in importance in the fandom.

I mean, I'm probably going to be a bit of a book purists (Not out of any sort of malice or superiority complex for having read them, I hope the adaptations are good.), even if the adaptation is good, especially when it comes to Era 1 for personal reasons.  Heck, when I went to the Worldhopper Ball this year, small costuming inaccuracies and changed lines stuck out like a sore thumb to me because I've read Final Empire probably too many times.  Honestly, I'm not too worried about it, the books aren't going anywhere, an adaptation probably won't change much for me, and if it means more Cosmere fans, all the better.

Edited January 30 by Nesh

[king of nowhere]

On 1/28/2026 at 11:10 PM, Frustration said:

That it will be good mostly. I mean when was the last good big budget Sci-fi/fantasy? The sonic films are the only things that come to mind.

 

Dune was great. Both movies.

Game of thrones was good for the first half.

Wheel of time wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. And it had great moments. Rhuidean alone was worth it.

One piece was wonderful.

Arcane, though not a real adaptation, was amazing.

So, there have been good adaptations. Especially when creators were given freedom and the original writer was supervising, which will be the case here. Even if this ends up less than stellar, it will probably still have plenty of stuff worth salvaging.

No, the only thing i'm not optimistic about is whether they will actually do it, or if the contract will collapse like all others. I'll believe this is really happening when i will be in the theater watching the end credits of the first mistborn movie.

[Qianweilian He/him]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

I'll believe this is really happening when i will be in the theater watching the end credits of the first mistborn movie.

So you won't believe it when you buy a ticket to go watch Mistborn: The Final Empire: The Movie?

[king of nowhere]

2 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

So you won't believe it when you buy a ticket to go watch Mistborn: The Final Empire: The Movie?

actually, i was quoting pratchett and gayman when they were asked about a possible movie adaptation of good omens: one of them said he'd believe it after watching the end credits, and the other said, not even then.

 

anyway, even in the best case scenario we won't get anything before 2 more years, and in a more realistic case it will be 3-5. in the pessimistic case it will collapse like other deals (and in the very pessimistic case, they will make movies, they will suck, and nobody will ever try to produce cosmere again).

so all the discussion on how to deal with the influx of movie fans is way premature. putting the ox in front of the cart, when you're a caveman who just discovered that new round thing you invented could revolutionize transportation.

[Duwath He/Him]

On 1/29/2026 at 6:33 AM, Chaos said:

I'm pretty excited (and have a video coming out very soon on it). I am concerned about Hollywood taking up time in Brandon's schedule. I am not really worried about Ghostbloods' release, but I think if these adaptations get off the ground, it will be challenging to balance a Stormlight show and new Stormlight.

I have that concern, too.

However on a positive note I think this gives Brandon so much new energy at the same time as well.

In one video (can't remember the exact one) he hinted that after such a long writing career it gets kind of exhausting at some point and sometimes it's hard to keep that intrinsic motivation.

I figure with this deal now, he will be super hyped himself and probably finish the mistborn screenplay in 2 weeks now (maybe a bit exaggerated even for him) and will have renewed energy also for the rest of the cosmere, especially if the TV stuff is doing good later on.

Edited January 30 by Duwath

[RedBlue]

Considering the timelines, it seems likely to me that the first film will be released at around the same time as the Ghostbloods books. Which will make it a very interesting time to be in the fandom. Old fans discussing new material, movie-onlies discussing new old material, film-to-book fans catching up on the back catalog.

I’m anticipating a huge influx of Kelsier hot takes 

 

9 hours ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

What I don't have a good word for and (probably confusingly) call "representation" isn't just about the characters.  It's about the world, the worldview, the tone, the story.  In my interpretation...It's about being in a horrible world and not being of that world, it's about the sacred duty to preserve the memory of the past, Sazed's search for the long-lost true religion among all the various teachings and faiths, about how all these freaking authority figures react to any violence with a kajillion times more violence, about a city trying to survive when opposition is on all sides, about how the world is so much worse than it ought to be, than it was created, than it will be when all is made right.  It's about divine plans made before the creation of the world.  It's about ancient truth written in metal, about whether the new faith survives its mortal leader's death, about how man can become divine, where resilience through trials is both living another gosh-darn day and a holy principle, It's about living in a world about to end.  The "vibes" are representative.

I think I understand what you mean about ‘vibes.’ Kind of a nebulous feeling that these characters are a lot like you and have thematically familiar problems, just in a very different context?

I’m not sure anyone, including Sanderson, could know in advance if the movie is going to connect with you on that level. Even after they finish making the movie. Emotional resonance isn’t predictable, especially for specific individuals.

[Qianweilian He/him]

27 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

I’m anticipating a huge influx of Kelsier hot takes 

Guys, I think it’s just me, but hear out my hot take, imo Kelsier would be a villain in another book. Also another hot take, but I think indicriminately killing all the nobles is wrong.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

39 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

Guys, I think it’s just me, but hear out my hot take, imo Kelsier would be a villain in another book. Also another hot take, but I think indicriminately killing all the nobles is wrong.

-Furiously types 70,000,000,000 word diatribe defending Kelsier from all accusations of having done anything wrong, ever-