ENTIRE COSMERE OPTIONED FOR MOVIES

[Young Bard he/him]

54 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

There's already a few threads I think.

There are definitely multiple threads out there - I remember distinctly agreeing with someone about how awesome Jeremy Irons would be at playing Dalinar...

[bdoble97]

Can someone show me where Sanderson says that Mistborn will be first before Stormlight because that will ease my worries. Next to The Wheel of Time, Stormlight has become my favorite fantasy novel probably my favorite series of anything I've ever read even though there's only two books out so far.

[What's a Seawolf?]

This is the oddest combination of fantastic goosebump inspiring news and worrying, creeping dread inspiring news.

As others have mentioned, it just comes down to how good a job they do.

First and foremost, congrats to Brandon and team.  A well deserved accomplishment.  Looking forward to the 'soon to be a major motion picture' stamp on the cosmere books.

Second, please please please start with Mistborn.  Part of that desire is the fanboy in me so badly wanting to see Kel and crew on screen, but also because it lends itself so nicely to a movie trilogy.

Third, I haven't seen much discussion regarding starting with Warbreaker, but I feel like that novel would be a great first movie as well.  Standalone novel, unique characters, and very unique magic system.  Breath and Awakening may cost a little more in the CGI department, but I doubt anyone's even at the stage where that's a major concern yet.

[bdoble97]

59 minutes ago, The Young Bard said:

There are definitely multiple threads out there - I remember distinctly agreeing with someone about how awesome Jeremy Irons would be at playing Dalinar...

Sorry but no thank you. The dudes got a great voice but I can not see him as Dalinar at. My choice for Dalinar is William Hurt. Had this commissioned by @venamis you cand find him over on Instagram 

[Argent he/him]

9 hours ago, DeployParachute said:

I'm sorry, but I just can't be excited about this news in any way.  I am very proud and happy that Brandon's work is getting the kind of recognition that would open up such an opportunity for him, but I just see this as yet another future letdown.  Much like Dresden, Harry Potter, Sword of Shannara, Sword of Truth, and the big one: GoT before it, this is just another opportunity in which I get to see some of the story plots and characters, and worlds that I have grown to love get ruined by a bunch of Executives and screenwriters looking to make the biggest ROI by dumbing down the material to the lowest common denominator for consumption by the masses.  These kinds of stories rarely work being translated to the screen, and the odds are stacked against a Cosmere story being any different.  Call me a snobbish book purist, call me overly pessimistic, and perhaps I am both those things, but the only positive thing I see coming from this is that Brandon gets several big checks and he and his family never have to worry about money again.  As for his stories being entrusted to the hands of people who I know will have goals and motivations very different from his own, all I can say is I hope he looks to the history of other authors before him, and he understands just what it will mean to have his works turned into something he may never have intended.

I don't think that's fair of you to say. Not at all. First, it makes it sound like you better than Brandon what would and wouldn't work for his universe. To assume that the people he is entrusting the Cosmere to (people he describes as "fans" by the way) will do a terrible job show either arrogance or lack of faith. Moreover, Brandon is not some third-rate author who would jump on the first lucrative movie deal that reared its head. He is doing very well financially, and his passion for (good) writing will keep him in this spot for a long time. Which means that unless you are accusing him of blind greed, he has had time to choose people he believes will at least attempt to honor his work.

Furthermore, you are making a very big claim about all those cinematic adaptations - that they were ruined. You are obviously unhappy with all of them, but that is simply not the case for a lot of people. Both Game of Thrones and Harry Potter are well received in their respective (book) fandoms. Yes, there are people who are dissatisfied (and yes, there are things I don't like as well), but I maintain that adaptations are judged too harshly; they are adaptations after all, not carbon copies, some things have to be different.

So. You are obviously entitled to your own opinion, but I ask you to at least not generalize it and present it as an objective truth. Furthermore, I encourage you (though this one is entirely up to you) to rethink your stance this particular deal and consider what Brandon's position on it implies.

[Eki]

6 minutes ago, Argent said:

Furthermore, you are making a very big claim about all those cinematic adaptations - that they were ruined. You are obviously unhappy with all of them, but that is simply not the case for a lot of people. Both Game of Thrones and Harry Potter are well received in their respective (book) fandoms. Yes, there are people who are dissatisfied (and yes, there are things I don't like as well), but I maintain that adaptations are judged too harshly; they are adaptations after all, not carbon copies, some things have to be different.

Not to mention that the books will never be ruined, regardless of how potential movie adaptions go. The books will always be there.

[AngelEy3 he/him]

17 minutes ago, Argent said:

I don't think that's fair of you to say. Not at all. First, it makes it sound like you better than Brandon what would and wouldn't work for his universe. To assume that the people he is entrusting the Cosmere to (people he describes as "fans" by the way) will do a terrible job show either arrogance or lack of faith. Moreover, Brandon is not some third-rate author who would jump on the first lucrative movie deal that reared its head. He is doing very well financially, and his passion for (good) writing will keep him in this spot for a long time. Which means that unless you are accusing him of blind greed, he has had time to choose people he believes will at least attempt to honor his work.

Furthermore, you are making a very big claim about all those cinematic adaptations - that they were ruined. You are obviously unhappy with all of them, but that is simply not the case for a lot of people. Both Game of Thrones and Harry Potter are well received in their respective (book) fandoms. Yes, there are people who are dissatisfied (and yes, there are things I don't like as well), but I maintain that adaptations are judged too harshly; they are adaptations after all, not carbon copies, some things have to be different.

So. You are obviously entitled to your own opinion, but I ask you to at least not generalize it and present it as an objective truth. Furthermore, I encourage you (though this one is entirely up to you) to rethink your stance this particular deal and consider what Brandon's position on it implies.

I agree that adaptations are judged too harshly. If you try to view them as companions instead, I find that they are easier to digest. LOTR was done very well, as is Game of Thrones, and so were the Harry Potter films. Sure, for every LotR there's MTV's Shannara Chronicles, but holds true from all movies. Most of the best movies are book adaptations to begin with anyways. I know it doesn't always translate well to the fantasy genre, but if nobody ever even tries to make one, we won't ever have any more good ones. 

Sometimes it also helps to think of the movie as a retelling of the original story, passed on by oral tradition, until all the details are muddied, and some characters get forgotten or combined.... but the story ends in the same place. Think of it in the way that Sazed would.

Edited October 28, 2016 by AngelEy3
Excitement Spren

[The Invested Beard]

1 hour ago, bdoble97 said:

Can someone show me where Sanderson says that Mistborn will be first before Stormlight because that will ease my worries. Next to The Wheel of Time, Stormlight has become my favorite fantasy novel probably my favorite series of anything I've ever read even though there's only two books out so far.

It's from the Reddit post that was linked. Here's the quote:

Question: Thanks for the input! Could you comment on the fact that they're starting with Stormlight but only 2 books are out?

Brandon: Really, right now, most of what they are doing is saying, "what would this look like?" Getting a handle on the Cosmere is a big job, and so they are exploring everything too see what works best. Emperors Soul is what first drew them to me, so that isn't off the table either. I strongly suspect Mistborn will happen first, if we do get to the greenlight stage.

[bdoble97]

1 minute ago, The Invested Beard said:

It's from the Reddit post that was linked. Here's the quote:

 

 

Thank you. Like I have said in the past I truly believe that Brandon Sanderson is a legit cool and is all about the fans because he was such a huge fan of The Wheel of Time growing up he understands our thought process when it comes to adapting beloved books into movies. Because he thinks the same way. 

[The Invested Beard]

So someone on io9 threw this one out there: Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things as Vin. She's a bit young now, but by the time they actually get around to filming? PERFECT!

Edited October 28, 2016 by The Invested Beard

[Pagerunner he/him]

Can someone tell me what's wrong with Shannara Chronicles? I haven't read the books, I watched the show on a whim, and I really enjoyed it. I contrast it very favorably with Legend of the Seeker, an adaptation a few years back of Terry Goodkind's books, in its pacing and scope. (I didn't like the episodic nature of Seeker, where they broke it out into a bunch of 45-minute self-contained adventures, which really took the wind out of the larger story).

Normally, I don't see any downside in adapting a book. Even bad publicity, like the Eragon movie, brings up often that the books are different and avoid many of the pitfalls. Game of Thrones has pioneered a unique issue, where the adaptation of an ongoing series overtakes the novels, and the books have taken second fiddle to the show. I think it is extremely relevant to point that out for Stormlight's case, and I think (some) of the downvotes are a little unfair. The TV show has objectively altered the experience of the books (making them take longer, spoiling elements in a different medium, presenting alternate events that will make understanding continuity more difficult), so just saying "you can ignore the movies if you don't like them that much" is missing the point of some of the complaints.

Hey, does anyone else think it's time for some anecdotal evidence that challenges basic assumptions? Well... here goes. Did anyone else notice how Game of Thrones didn't cause anyone to read the books? Everyone I know who read it, read it before the show came out, and a lot of people who were crazy about the show were adamant about not reading the books, not absorbing spoilers. It got just bizarre in some early seasons - people saying they couldn't wait to find out what Character X would be up to, how their story would turn out. But, I'm thinking, "If you really wanted to know, then why are you avoiding the books like the plague? I already know!" It was completely different than Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or even Jason Bourne, where a lot of people read the books only because they watched the movies and heard how much they were missing out on from those worlds. I wonder if it has to do with the time commitment... watching a movie is three hours of your life, and that's it, while a TV show will take up as many as 20 hours per season. Books, it all depends how fast you read, but it's definitely comparable to TV shows. If you've already put in the effort to watch a show, do you really want to spend another large chunk of time to read what you had just watched?

So, what I'm trying to say is, a strict adaption won't bring more readers. It will bring greater exposure to the story, but once you've watched a faithful adaption, there's no incentive to go read the books. But when you really enjoy a movie and hear how much more there is in the book, that can be a driving factor. Seeing a great Kaladin movie and hearing that the book has three other main characters, that could get people to want to pick up the books. You gotta save some good stuff for the readers.

[AngelEy3 he/him]

13 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Can someone tell me what's wrong with Shannara Chronicles? I haven't read the books, I watched the show on a whim, and I really enjoyed it. I contrast it very favorably with Legend of the Seeker, an adaptation a few years back of Terry Goodkind's books, in its pacing and scope. (I didn't like the episodic nature of Seeker, where they broke it out into a bunch of 45-minute self-contained adventures, which really took the wind out of the larger story).

I liked it too, I just meant that it got generally poor reviews. I also like Legend of the Seeker

 

Hey, does anyone else think it's time for some anecdotal evidence that challenges basic assumptions? Well... here goes. Did anyone else notice how Game of Thrones didn't cause anyone to read the books? Everyone I know who read it, read it before the show came out, and a lot of people who were crazy about the show were adamant about not reading the books, not absorbing spoilers. It got just bizarre in some early seasons - people saying they couldn't wait to find out what Character X would be up to, how their story would turn out. But, I'm thinking, "If you really wanted to know, then why are you avoiding the books like the plague? I already know!" It was completely different than Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or even Jason Bourne, where a lot of people read the books only because they watched the movies and heard how much they were missing out on from those worlds. I wonder if it has to do with the time commitment... watching a movie is three hours of your life, and that's it, while a TV show will take up as many as 20 hours per season. Books, it all depends how fast you read, but it's definitely comparable to TV shows. If you've already put in the effort to watch a show, do you really want to spend another large chunk of time to read what you had just watched?

I generally agree with this assessment, but I have to point out that I actually read the books because of the TV Show. (I understand that probably makes me an outlier.) I hadn't read a book in almost 8 years, but decided that I needed to read ASOIAF because of how much I loved the show. I have what is probably a unique perspective on this, having read the books second to the show. I feel like the books only enhanced what I had already enjoyed about the show. 

 

So, what I'm trying to say is, a strict adaption won't bring more readers. It will bring greater exposure to the story, but once you've watched a faithful adaption, there's no incentive to go read the books. But when you really enjoy a movie and hear how much more there is in the book, that can be a driving factor. Seeing a great Kaladin movie and hearing that the book has three other main characters, that could get people to want to pick up the books. You gotta save some good stuff for the readers.

So... In a way... Game of Thrones the TV show, not only got me to read ASOIAF but, also got me reading anything again at all. My next stop was Way of Kings and now I'm here. Total anecdotal evidence, for sure I know. Just wanted you to know that at least once person was drawn to read because of the show. So.. that's something I guess.

 

Edited October 28, 2016 by AngelEy3

[Eki]

10 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Did anyone else notice how Game of Thrones didn't cause anyone to read the books?

I read the books because of the TV show.

Granted, I read them to avoid getting spoilered by tv show viewers later on, and then never actually watched the TV show, but still. Without the TV show, I would have waited on reading them for quite a while, probably.

[Argent he/him]

27 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Did anyone else notice how Game of Thrones didn't cause anyone to read the books?

In my experience this is massively untrue. I've been commuting to either school or work for close to 10 years now, so I have a good grasp of what commuters read - and I've noticed a very significant increase in people reading A Song of Ice and Fire every since the show came out. So when I say that the show has helped the books do better, I speak from a position where I have access to a decently large data set. Anecdotal evidence, yes, but a large volume of it.

So for that factor alone, I would like to see Cosmere movies done.

[bdoble97]

18 minutes ago, AngelEy3 said:

 

See Game of Thrones  did the opposite from me and I stopped reading A Song of Ice and Fire. Is this may sound pretty stupid but I just totally disagreed with almost all the actors they have playing that character is that it ruined the book for me. I probably will someday finish the series Once George RR Martin actually finishes it but the idea of the TV show surpassing the books is not interesting to me at all so I stopped watching the show a while ago and won't read the books until the whole things done now.

[bdoble97]

4 minutes ago, Argent said:

In my experience this is massively untrue. I've been commuting to either school or work for close to 10 years now, so I have a good grasp of what commuters read - and I've noticed a very significant increase in people reading A Song of Ice and Fire every since the show came out. So when I say that the show has helped the books do better, I speak from a position where I have access to a decently large data set. Anecdotal evidence, yes, but a large volume of it.

So for that factor alone, I would like to see Cosmere movies done.

I loved the Song Of Ice And Fire series reread the books twice and then listen to them on tape while I was driving home from the police academy every Friday which was a three-hour Drive. But that was 10 years ago so I don't remember how many books are out at the time. But once the show actually started on HBO it kind of ruined it for me I may just be in the minority on that. It just changed so much from what my mind I thought when I read the books and what I saw on the actual screen. But for the opposite I watch Lord of the Rings before I ever read any of the books and that helped me tenfod in getting into the books. I just love what Brandon has done with The Stormlight Archive and his other books I get extremely nervous thinking what it will look like on screen I can't even imagine how big the budget would be to truly capture what the books are. I am optimistic though because I don't think Brandon would sign this deal unless he believed they could do what is right and true to the books if  that make sense. I think if they are going to try to adapt The Stormlight Archives into a movie and be as faithful as possible this movie it's going to have to be a hybrid of motion capture CGI to a degree that we've never seen before. I know that the Jungle Book movie is like 95% CGI. But I think both The Stormlight will have to be is a huge amount of CGI slash motion-capture in huge set pieces like they did in Warcraft. I'm doing voice to text and kind of rambling on so I hope this makes sense but the whole world of Stormlight Archives is Italian world compared to what we have I don't really think this anywhere that they can go on location in film most of the scenes without severely altering it post-production. I guess what I'm trying to say is The Stormlight movies will be a huge emphasized huge undertaking and the budget will be massive.

[Glamdring804]

Honestly, I think trying to cram a Stormlight novel into a movie is a mistake. The LoTR extended editions are each 4 hours long, and the source material was only slightly longer than a single doorstopper. Granted, LoTR is a lot more dense than SA, to fit a single book into a single movie of any reasonable length would require cutting out half the novel. By my estimate, each book would require a 8 to 10 episode miniseries to contain it properly, roughly two episodes for each part. Think something like Marvel's Netflix series. 

Edited October 28, 2016 by Glamdring804

[bdoble97]

4 minutes ago, Glamdring804 said:

Honestly, I think trying to cram a Stormlight novel into a movie is a mistake. The LoTR extended editions are each 4 hours long, and the source material was only slightly longer than a single doorstopper. Granted, LoTR is a lot more dense Han SA, to fit a single book into a single movie of any reasonable length would require cutting out half the novel. By my estimate, each book would require a 8 to 10 episode miniseries to contain it properly, roughly two episodes for each part. Think something like Marvel's Netflix series. 

What do you think of the idea of WOK being 3-4 movies and they get actors to do motion capture CGI. They could build a lot of the sets for  inside the war camps and then do practical sets mixed with CGI for the shattered Plains. By the time that they get to Stormlight if what Brandon says it's true they're doing Mistborn first the technology will be even better than it is today did you see what Robert Downey jr. Look like in the beginning of Captain America Civil War with tbe deaging CGI is amazing. And then the motion-capture work they've done in the Planet of the Apes movies are amazing  imagine 5 to 10 years from now which probably a stretch but how better the technology will be for motion caption Parshendi.  Even though the Warcraft movie story wasn't the greatest the CGI for the Orcs were fantastic if you take this technology and apply it to actor is playing Parshendi in warform and Stormform it could be quite amazing looking.

[DSC01 he/him]

I don't know where to find the data, but I am fairly certainly that it can be empirically proved that The Game of Thrones TV show did lead to more readers of A Song of Ice and Fire. I found this chart that at least shows a pretty significant boost in sales:

I'm not trying to hijack the thread. I just think that we should put aside the notion that Game of Thrones didn't lead to more GRRM readers. If that has been anyone's personal experience, I have no doubt that you don't know anyone in your group of friends who started reading the books because of the show, but that doesn't change the overall trends. I, for one, read ASoIaF because of the show and also all the Wild Cards books, except for the latest one. That's a lot of books that I may well have never read if not for the show. In fact, it is because of reading those books that I realized that fantasy is the genre that I most enjoy reading, so me being a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson's books, The Wheel of Time, Lightbringer... All of that can be traced to the Game of Thrones show.

Anyway, The Stormlight Archive is a very odd choice to start with, as a lot of others have noticed. Mistborn is a much better idea, and I also hope that they go with that. Even so, SA could be adapted into movies, and there is the advantage of budget associated with doing it that way (even though I think a TV series would work better for such a long story). If they don't even start production for another 5 years, the first arc may well be complete (or close to it) by the time the first movie comes out.

 

[theuntaintedchild he/him]

2 hours ago, Argent said:

In my experience this is massively untrue. I've been commuting to either school or work for close to 10 years now, so I have a good grasp of what commuters read - and I've noticed a very significant increase in people reading A Song of Ice and Fire every since the show came out. So when I say that the show has helped the books do better, I speak from a position where I have access to a decently large data set. Anecdotal evidence, yes, but a large volume of it.

So for that factor alone, I would like to see Cosmere movies done.

I agree wholeheartedly. You folks are fine people and I love this site, but there's nothing like geeking out hard with people in person. If these films are successful enough to garner a following of people new to the cosmere. That's all the more people I can blather on incoherently to. 

[Argent he/him]

7 minutes ago, theuntaintedchild said:

I agree wholeheartedly. You folks are fine people and I love this site, but there's nothing like geeking out hard with people in person. If these films are successful enough to garner a following of people new to the cosmere. That's all the more people I can blather on incoherently to. 

Plus, imagine how much more opportunities we'll have to inform the people around us, in the movie theater, about how the movie is different. So much knowledge we could spread.

[Pagerunner he/him]

Excellent graph, @DSC01, and much more indicative than personal stories of who has or hasn't killed whom, although I would like to see it extended to the left to give release sales for the other books, and comparisons to its competition over the same period of time. If you ever find the actual hard sales data, please let me know, but whenever I've looked in the past I've wound up empty handed. It's not the sort of thing that gets wide publication.

To clarify my original point, I was referring more to mechanisms of how different methods of adaption can increase viewership. In all-time Amazon bestsellers, GRRM is 48, Brandon is 54, Tolkien is 60. But Rowling is #1, and I have many friends and family members (and coworkers, and acquaintances, and probably a pet or two) who have read nothing beyond what is assigned for school, and Harry Potter. The Jason Bourne movies prompted the creation of a second Bourne book series by a different author, which is at 10 books and still going strong. Game of Thrones has been successful beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and it has made the books more popular among fantasy readers (and made some new fantasy readers while it's at it!), but it still hasn't had the impact that a movie can have. I think that's borne out in the graph, as well - you've got a ton of Book 1 sales, but people don't stick with it to Book 5 (which is floating at where Books 2 and 3 were before the show). Which is my counterpoint to people saying that Stormlight Archive would be best as a TV show, because it could be a faithful adaption. I think movies can drive more people to read the books than a TV show can, which broadens the audience for the definitive experience.

Again: not saying it hasn't increased the popularity. Just that a movie can do it more impactfully.

[DSC01 he/him]

@Pagerunner Ah, okay! I see what you're getting at now. That is a good point. It's probably impossible to really compare the actual impact of a hit show versus a hit movie on growing the readership of the source material with just those examples alone. In general, movies are automatically taken seriously until they prove themselves to be ridiculous; whereas, the opposite is true of TV shows. Most TV shows looking for acclaim have tons of adult-oriented material, like they have to work hard to prove that they're not kids' stuff, so it's no surprise that the first fantasy TV show to get major widespread recognition for its quality is GoT. The source material is just as adult-oriented, so it's definitely going to have have a narrower appeal than Harry Potter, which is also easier to read, can be appreciated by adults and children, etc. That said, I believe that a movie does have a bigger impact than a TV show; I just wish we could find out exactly what that is.

[Fedcomic he/him]

Sorry, I'm going to ignore all the previous comments in this thread because I have to say HOLY FREAKING CRAP HOW AWESOME IS THIS!!!

(And now I can go read the rest of this thread, like a good forum participant.)

[Oversleep]

Just for reference: I remember Brandon talking about sales of books and how different "levels" of books sell and that books after a film was released get such a huge boost so it's almost the most selling category (I believe the first category is those unpredictable wonders striking like a bolt of lightning and devouring the market. Like Twilight).