Sanderson’s Cosmere Strategy
Brandon Sanderson says he deliberately excludes standard fantasy races like elves and dwarves from the Cosmere to keep its mythology distinct — a point he explained in his recent SanderFAQ series . He’s also modeling Mistborn’s Apple TV+ rollout on franchise-building playbooks like James Gunn and Kevin Feige to maintain narrative consistency across multiple films and series .
Sanderson wrote a BYU magazine essay titled “Kill the Elves” in the late ’90s[polygon.com], and later published a website piece called “How Tolkien Ruined Fantasy” that he now calls clickbait as his views softened (he also says he listens to the Lord of the Rings audiobook narrated by Andy Serkis).polygon.com He says he’s roughly 10% done on the Mistborn screenplay[polygon.com] and told listeners he plans to finish a first draft by July 2026 while searching for a producer with an announcement expected in March 2026.polygon.com Sanderson has adopted what he calls the “James Gunn” playbook — prioritize a “fantastic script” and avoid costly reshoots to protect continuity[polygon.com], a deliberate production stance he’s using to build the Cosmere on screen.uk.moyens.net Apple reportedly outbid rivals for the Cosmere rights and granted Sanderson write, producer and cast-approval privileges[hollywoodreporter.com], and the plan on record is to develop Mistborn as feature films and The Stormlight Archive as a streaming series while Sanderson acts as a franchise “shepherd” — with Mistborn Ghostbloods targeted to be on time in 2028.hollywoodreporter.com
