Brandon Sanderson Cinematic Universe? (BSCU)

[MistbornAlpaca he/him]

Hey, everyone, just wondering what you'd all think if Disney bought the Cosmere rights and gave it a Marvel Cinematic Universe treatment. I think it'd be so cool to have the Doctor Strange director do the Stormlight movies.

[king of nowhere]

Some producers are getting interested. Brandon has sold movie rights for his books many, many times. So far, it never progressed past the planning stage, but there's a fair chance that eventually it will. So, we may see it.

The most promising of those projects involves the stormlight archive and was later discussed here

 

[Draginon he/him]

I don't think Disney would be a good fix for adapting Brandon's Literature Universe (look what they did to Narnia and that was a simple universe) since the main studio would want to make too many changes to give the stories the Disney treatment, so if they did Mistborn I doubt they'd have Elend and Vin die at the end and Elantris would not have the Elantrians look zombie like and instead suffer the Phantom of the Opera treatment. On top of all that a lot of the religion stuff would be drastically downplayed and faith is a big theme in the Cosmere (Elantrians being revered as gods, the god culture of Warbreaker, the religion of Hrathen, the Shards, etc) so it'd lose something.

I don't know which major studio would be a good fit for either producing or distributing but the books are so cinematic a studio would have to mess up big time to not do these books justice.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

26 minutes ago, Draginon said:

I don't know which major studio would be a good fit for either producing or distributing

Maybeeeee Legendary. They've made some really good stuff. I'd at least have a small amount of hope haha

[Draginon he/him]

12 hours ago, CaptainRyan said:

Maybeeeee Legendary. They've made some really good stuff. I'd at least have a small amount of hope haha

What studio are they associated with?

[CaptainRyan he/him]

1 hour ago, Draginon said:

What studio are they associated with?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legendary_Entertainment

They've done movies like Pacific Rim, Jurassic World, and the Great Wall. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Didn't Legendary do Warcraft too? That is a good movie (and so is Great Wall). 

Anyway, I'd love a BSCU done right. I maintain that Stormlight needs to be a television series with the budget of Game of Thrones. I have a hard time seeing that happen, unless the Mistborn/Elantris/Warbreaker adaptions are REALLY successfull. 

We also have to consider the nature of the Box Office. A lot of stuff fails to make money nowadays, fantasy in particular. Warcraft, Great Wall, Gods of Egypt, King Arthur... even Pirates of the Caribbean is starting to have a hard time getting people to enter the cinema. Is it possible to make something like Mistborn a success? Yes it is, but it would require great marketing, bankable actors, a great director and favorable reviews. 

It can work, but it will be hard.

[MistbornAlpaca he/him]

18 hours ago, Draginon said:

I don't think Disney would be a good fix for adapting Brandon's Literature Universe (look what they did to Narnia and that was a simple universe) since the main studio would want to make too many changes to give the stories the Disney treatment, so if they did Mistborn I doubt they'd have Elend and Vin die at the end and Elantris would not have the Elantrians look zombie like and instead suffer the Phantom of the Opera treatment. On top of all that a lot of the religion stuff would be drastically downplayed and faith is a big theme in the Cosmere (Elantrians being revered as gods, the god culture of Warbreaker, the religion of Hrathen, the Shards, etc) so it'd lose something.

I don't know which major studio would be a good fit for either producing or distributing but the books are so cinematic a studio would have to mess up big time to not do these books justice.

I agree that Disney could potentially destroy it, however, my idea wasn't so much that Disney in specific would buy it, just more of the idea of an MCU treatment. Just the way it's planned out immaculately from beginning to end, full of easter eggs and hints to future movies that are often glossed over, to me at least, seems very Cosmer'ish. 

 

3 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Didn't Legendary do Warcraft too? That is a good movie (and so is Great Wall). 

Anyway, I'd love a BSCU done right. I maintain that Stormlight needs to be a television series with the budget of Game of Thrones. I have a hard time seeing that happen, unless the Mistborn/Elantris/Warbreaker adaptions are REALLY successfull. 

We also have to consider the nature of the Box Office. A lot of stuff fails to make money nowadays, fantasy in particular. Warcraft, Great Wall, Gods of Egypt, King Arthur... even Pirates of the Caribbean is starting to have a hard time getting people to enter the cinema. Is it possible to make something like Mistborn a success? Yes it is, but it would require great marketing, bankable actors, a great director and favorable reviews. 

It can work, but it will be hard.

I totally agree that Stormlight should be a series, it would just give them so much more time to develop the characters. In a movie that would have to be extremely rushed.

[HelloMyNameIsDrBloodborne]

I think that their strategy shouldn't be to sell it as a Cinematic Universe, but to follow Brandon's example and severely downplay the connections and sell each series based on its own story. They shouldn't be trying to ape the Marvel formula, for the simple reason that there isn't an Avengers-style team up movie five movies down the line. Maybe not even 20 movies down the line. 

I think dropping subtle hints (like Hoid's presence) will be enough to clue people in to the overall story.