Brandon Sanderson is the next George R.R. Martin of fantasy, primed for adaptation. Here is why his books should be animated, not live-action.
Ever since Game of Thrones ended in 2019, streaming services have been looking around for the next large-scale high fantasy project. With incredible shows like the GoT prequel House of the Dragon on HBO, The Wheel of Time, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power stepping up the game on Amazon, there is a huge demand for big budget, monumental fantasy projects. The Rings of Power is even projected to have the biggest budget of any TV show ever made.
And there is no fantasy writer better poised to dominate on-screen fantasy adaptations than Brandon Sanderson.
The man is, first of all, a writing machine. He got his big break in finishing Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time exceedingly well, writing the last three books after the author died. He now has more than 60 published works, including novels, short stories, and graphic novels, with many more planned to follow. He writes at a pace twice as fast as some of the most prolific authors out there, including Stephen King.
And it's not just about speed. He's won numerous awards including a few Hugo Awards, and he is widely lauded as one of the best fantasy writers of our time. He also holds the record for the highest-grossing Kickstarter campaign in the history of the website, upon his surprise announcement of a secret five novels that he wrote without letting anyone know about them until they were finished.
The sheer amount of work that is already done, and ready to be adapted to film, is impressive. But "Brando Sando", as his fans call him, has no plans on stopping or even slowing down. So now would be a great time to start adapting his work into films or TV shows - it's surprising it hasn't already happened. DMG Entertainment currently owns the rights to the Cosmere in its entirety, though nothing has been made yet. But at this point the question isn't if it will happen, but when. And how.
Right now, Sanderson still wants a lot of creative freedom over any adaptations. As he said in a recent Reddit AMA:
"It depends on how comfortable I get with the television and movie format. When Stormlight happens as a television show, I want to be deeply involved. I want to write some of the episodes, I want to be co-creator - and I am just not ready for that yet."
So, until Sanderson is ready to go, speculation will continue. Fans have long debated over which kind of adaptation would be better - live-action or animation. Sanderson himself has always pushed for live-action adaptations, especially for projects like the Mistborn series. But, he has started to come around to animation for series that would be more difficult to adapt, like The Stormlight Archive.
Animation is already an underappreciated genre, especially with the potential it has to communicate more adult-themed stories. Yet, that is changing. Adult animation is currently the fastest growing type of animation. With the vast scope of the work involved, the highly creative characters and world-building, and the unique style of storytelling, animation is the only way to communicate the incredible stories of the Cosmere, and his other series, in a way that makes them truly shine, and here's why.
Sanderson's Cosmere is a universe that is interconnected through both the plot and the characters. There is, for instance, the enigmatic character Hoid, who appears across multiple worlds and within many different series. Hoid is also a character that is ageless. To cast him in live-action could become a consistency problem if, 10 or more years later, he needed to either be recast, or played by an actor who had aged.
Animation would be better to represent someone like Hoid. And if you're going to animate him in some series, like The Stormlight Archive (Sanderson's most ambitious series to date), then he needs to be animated in all instances - otherwise, seeing him in live-action for some series, and animated for others, could be jarring.
This is a larger problem than just Hoid. If you're going to adapt Sanderson's Cosmere, the entire Cosmere needs to be adapted in unison - it is an all-or-nothing deal. Because most of the Cosmere is not only interlinked, but seems to be moving towards an overarching plot that Sanderson has been hinting at for years now. Any adaptation would be the kind of decade-long (or longer) project that would rival the Marvel cinematic universe, if not greatly surpass it. And with such a long amount of time these adaptations would take, some actors are bound to leave and be replaced within that time. It is much easier to replace a voice actor than a live-action actor.
And the best place to start with any adaptations for Sanderson's novels is the Cosmere series Mistborn. Mistborn takes place on a world that is not as drastically different from our world as many of his other series, and it stars the compelling and engaging characters Vin and Kelsior (the latter of whom would probably steal the show). Sanderson was inspired to write the Mistborn series because of his love for heist films, so it would translate to movies very well. Mistborn was also Sanderson's first published series, so starting with an early work such as Mistborn or the standalone Cosmere novel Elantris is ideal.
There are other novels or series that could be adapted to live action, such as The Reckoners series, which is a young adult superhero series akin to a much-tamer version of The Boys, in which people with superpowers rule city-states in a post-apocalyptic United Sates. But, there is still a problem even with that.
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Brandon Sanderson is one of the most creative modern fantasy readers of our time. Novels like the Mistborn series have characters pushing and pulling metal as their power, which can turn metal coins into bullets, or launch a fighter away from a heavy metal building. The use of physics is mind-bending and downright awesome.
In The Stormlight Archive, thirteen different races exist, such as the Parshendi with their red-and-black skin and alien-like growths; or the blue-skinned Natan people, or the People of the Purelake, with leathery skin and long limbs. To convey just the races alone, across all of these universes (not just the Cosmere) would require a vast amount of prosthetics, or motion-capture technology, and probably both. The cost of the adaptations would skyrocket, especially when you consider that the Cosmere alone will likely have a few dozen books within it before it is finished.
Characters and superpowers aside, what Sanderson is really known for is his world-building. There are worlds such as the strange cities from The Reckoners series, in which Chicago has become entirely made of steel, New York City is mostly underwater, and a roaming city of salt in the desert, which used to be Atlanta, builds itself and disintegrates within a few days. To portray just this series alone would require vast amounts of CGI, and that is nothing compared to the planet Roshar, from The Stormlight Archive.
On Roshar, a vast landscape is shattered into pieces which extend for miles, with cavernous chasms between each broken piece of land. Alien flora and fauna live hardened, rock-like existences to protect themselves from the regular cycle of immense storms called "highstorms". And the land is populated with "spren", spirit-like creatures that manifest in forms that express things ranging from emotions, to the wind, to verdant areas of life. Try picturing the kodama from Princess Mononoke, the little forest spirits, done in CGI. The effect would simply not be the same, neither as colorful nor as unique and stylish. That is the final reason animation is the only answer for these adaptations.
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There is a certain style to Sanderson's writing - not just in the Cosmere, but all of his work. From the unique piloted dogfights in the sci-fi young adult series Skyward, to the airborne glowing battles in the sky of the high fantasy epic The Stormlight Archive, and everything in between, there is a certain kind of style that is signature to Brandon Sanderson. He even has his own "Laws of Magic", which dictate how he creates and uses his unique magic systems, and has come to highly influence the way we talk about modern fantasy.
Sanderson also doesn't stray into dark fantasy. He can definitely get dark (some stories involve the apocalypse, or murder), but he tends to keep it family-friendly for the most part. It is undeniably wholesome, a far cry from Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.
For Sanderson's work to be adapted, the ideal situation would be to have a unique, signature style that matched the feeling and atmosphere of the author's own written work. And animation is the best way to develop such a unique style.
It is obvious, at a glance, whether one is looking at a Studio Ghibli film, a Disney/Pixar film (and even what era), or a celtic-styled Cartoon Saloon film. These movies have such a unique look that they are immediately identifiable. Even within these franchises, it is instantly clear whether or not you're looking at a shot from Lilo & Stitch or Wall-E, for instance. And animation, especially 2D animation, is the best way to develop a signature style for a series of adaptations. Imagine if you could watch two Sanderson animated films, made 10 years apart, and know at a glance that they were both Sanderson adaptations simply from the style used in the animation. Creating that kind of atmosphere is exactly what this prolific writer deserves for his work, which has come to mean so much to his fans. And with such a unique series of worlds to adapt from, nothing less than style would be acceptable.
Lauren Perry is a traveler, writer, and surfer. She has degrees in both Philosophy and Journalism, and has explored 13 countries and 44 states. She currently resides in North Carolina.