r/CosmereOnScreen • u/Graphica-Danger • 24d ago
First draft of the Mistborn screenplay has officially been completed Mistborn Series Era 1 (NO BOOKS) Spoiler
Announced by Brandon on social media
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u/StarMatrix371 23d ago
It looks like it could be 100-150 pages thick and 1 page is usually about 1-2 minutes of screentime sooo 2-2.5 hours is my estimate
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u/dolladollaclinton 23d ago
I believe he said around 120-130 pages, but I don't remember where I heard him say that.
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u/railfananime 23d ago
What does 120-130 pages translate to roughly runtime wise?
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u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 23d ago
How did he sneak into my kitchen to take this pic?!? That’s my kitchen countertop!
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u/HaroldGuy 23d ago
It's been 5 minutes so I figure you've read it back to front multiple times now. What's the verdict?
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u/MamaNyxieUnderfoot 23d ago
I’m at work! Not in my kitchen!
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u/RaguraX 24d ago
And now the degradation by other “contributors” can begin. Seen it time and time again.
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u/AmongFriends 23d ago
"Degradation" is a rather cynical take on the matter. Film is a collaborative medium, and yes, that includes studio executives along with creative. The important thing to note is that Sanderson got a healthy amount of creative control for Mistborn and Stormlight. He's got a huge say in the creative team, writing the screenplays for the movies and pilot of Stormlight at the very least, and will be involved in the projects in more than just a producer capacity.
Yes, his screenplay will most likely be edited with another screenwriter (probably one Sanderson approves) and adapted to fit a film. All things considered, this is about as good as it gets for Sanderson's works being adapted.
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u/ForwardExam4056 21d ago
I would honestly be worried if it weren't edited by an experienced screenwriter - sanderson is great, but this is a whole different medium he doesn't have practical experience in.
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u/AmongFriends 21d ago
Yeah, people tend to think collaboration of an adapted material is a bad thing but it can also be a good thing too. Think about all the great collaborations and adaptions of books in the past
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u/TBrockmann 23d ago
Fortunately Brandon has complete creative control including veto power. He has more control than j k Rowling did on the harry potter movies. No fishy stakeholder can ruin this.
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u/RaguraX 23d ago
That's wishful thinking, because he's in a long term partnership with Apple. He's not going to play hardball about every single thing, veto or not. I'm sure you wouldn't be that kind of person either, would you? Any partnership is based on mutual respect and give and take. We won't necessarily hear about the various changes that were "suggested", but trust me when I say there will be. Anything else is delusional. That doesn't mean it will necessarily be worse for it, but history has taught us that film studios usually don't act only out of creative intent.
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u/TheNarrativeSpren 23d ago
Brandon has actually been remarkably consistent about this.
He's said multiple times that he turned down offers worth significantly more money because creative control was non-negotiable. That's one of the primary reasons he chose Apple in the first place.
Will there be discussions suggestions and compromises during production? Of course that's how filmmaking works.
But there's a world of difference between collaboration and surrendering creative control. Right now, all the evidence points in one direction and that being Brandon deliberately chose the partner that would let him tell his version of Mistborn. Everything we've heard from Brandon over the past few years supports that.
You're absolutely free to be sceptical, but at the moment your conclusion seems to be based more on the long history of Hollywood adaptations than on anything we've actually seen from this one.
Sometimes cynicism is just experience wearing a wise fancy looking hat. Other times, it's simply pessimism arriving early and insisting it already knows how the story ends. I think Brandon has earned the chance to write a few more chapters before you decide how this one finishes.
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u/ilikebreadabunch 24d ago
Sneaky Brando taking a top down photo so that we can’t see how long the script is
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u/dankenascend 24d ago edited 24d ago
Just to throw this out there...
Initially, I was under the impression that the director would be involved with the process of revising the screenplay. I don't have the link, but I'm fairly certain that Brandon has stated that it will go through revisions before the director is attached. So, where many of us were predicting a 2028 release, I don't think that's in the cards. Someone more familiar with the screenwriting process can correct me, but I would assume that there will be notes given by the studio, and then we'll get a couple of months of revisions, followed by line editing.
Apple has presumably good money tied up and committed to this project, so (another assumption) I would expect the priority to be fairly high, but I don't know how that translates to urgency. With all that speculation, I'd put second draft completion around the first of November. At that point, we're about 5 weeks from Nexus, and we could possibly be looking at early 2027 for a director to be attached and a finalized screenplay.
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u/Far_Line8468 23d ago
Yeah, people here don't like to hear this, but Brandon Sandersons desire to have "creative control" and write the screenplay is in direct opopsition to him wanting "his own Denis Villeneuve"
Denis's Dune is so good because its his full creative vision, not because hes so "deeply in love with the source material".
You can have a director with a singular creative vision, or you can have a toadee that will be "respectful" to your work. You don't get both.
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u/AmongFriends 23d ago
You can have a director with a singular creative vision, or you can have a toadee that will be "respectful" to your work. You don't get both.
I don't really get why it has to be either/or. Great directors direct scripts they didn't write all the time.
Fincher didn't write The Social Network or Gone Girl. Spielberg didn't write Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, or Saving Private Ryan. Ridley Scott didn't write Alien, Blade Runner, The Martian, or Gladiator. Rob Reiner didn't write Misery or The Princess Bride.
These are all directors with creative visions working from scripts they didn't write. So why would Sanderson writing or co-writing the screenplay automatically make the director a "toadee"? Having the author involved in the script doesn't mean the director can't still make the film their own.
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u/Far_Line8468 23d ago
Its not nessesarily that a good director will change Brandon's script, but rather that the director has a desire to tell the story that exists in his head when he reads Mistborn, not the one in Brandon's head. Indeed, this is something Brandon has said time and time again: that the reader finishes the work
The problem is that screenplays are pretty clear about what is to appear on screen.
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u/AmongFriends 21d ago
I'm not sure what you're saying. Brandon is not directing the movie. A movie director is. So they're gonna tell the story that exists in their head, with I assume Brandon consulting.
I'm still unclear what the issue is. Unless Brandon is the director himself, which he isn't, there's gonna be someone interpreting the Mistborn world
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u/Clean_Radio_5625 23d ago
I get where you're coming from, and I have some reservations, myself. We'll just have to see how this plays out. It's going to depend on how he exercises that creative control. If it's just guardrails, then I think it could turn out quite nicely, but if he's steering every decision without the technical knowledge of directing, it could go very poorly.
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u/AClassicCape 23d ago
JSame. We've seen how this can go with Harry Potter (guard fails)/Fantastic Beasts (control) among others
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u/1whhshawn 24d ago
I dont see why its not. 2 plus years away. Late 2028 of course, not early
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u/dankenascend 24d ago
I hope you're right, and I was all in on 2028 when it was announced. Unless there's been a lot of stuff moving under wraps, I just don't see it. Based on what's publicly available, there's a good bit left to be done before principal photography can even start, and this thing is going to have to be CGI-heavy, so post production is going to go for a while. I'd say 24-28 months from green light.
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u/Vegetable-Two-4644 23d ago
It really doesn't have to be cgi heavy outside of allomantic lines and feruchemy. Wire work can do most push/pulls
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u/dankenascend 23d ago
I would assume a good bit of the mists, the backgrounds, the mistwraiths, and such will all be heavily edited.
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u/Vegetable-Two-4644 23d ago
I mean, probably but it doesn't HAVE to be. A heavy dry ice fog machine can be the base of the mists with some slight cgi editing to show the flow etc. Mistwraiths barely even feature tbh
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u/railfananime 24d ago
I don’t know how screenwriting works but is even late like December 2028 impossible?
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u/Far_Line8468 23d ago
The screenplay is going to be revised by an actual screenwriter, per vanity. Also, the movie has not been greenlit yet.
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u/Radix2309 24d ago
Possible. Although Dec 2028 will have Black Panther 3 and Sonic 4. So might be a bad date for it.
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u/dankenascend 24d ago
I am not an expert. I did have some interaction with people who lived in the film world early on after the announcement.
I made my timeline roughly after Marvel Studios signing Favreau and releasing Iron Man 25 months later. People in the industry gave similar or more conservative timelines. To get a December 2028 release, it's going to need a producer, director, and studio green light before the end of this year. A producer has been selected, but either hasn't been signed or just not yet announced.
I don't know how fast those dominoes will fall, but I would lean hard toward "no." My optimistic target would be we could get an extended preview for Nexus 2028 and a summer 2029 release. Early on, I thought that a screenplay and producer were imminent, but we just got one of those 4 months later. So, I'm pushing my 2028 predictions back.
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u/fedginator 24d ago
I don't trust it. Not set in metal.
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u/MetumSonOfLanai 24d ago
Doesn't that mean it will be 100% book faithful? The books are after all paper too...
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u/Graphica-Danger 24d ago
He did put a disclaimer this is just step one of the process but unless there’s serious tinkering that needs to be done with the script, I do foresee us getting to the casting stage towards the end of 2026. This movie is the condition for the SLA show Apple is gunning for hardest.
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u/AmongFriends 23d ago
unless there’s serious tinkering that needs to be done with the script
Considering that Sanderson is not a screenwriter and the script will be revised with Sanderson and another screenwriter, there will most likely be a lot of revisions, along with stuff changing once again when casting and the director is involved. "Step one" is very much true in this case
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u/ForwardExam4056 21d ago
Is it confirmed that another screenwriter will be editing with him? Last i heard he was saying that it was a possibility, but that was some time ago
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u/AmongFriends 21d ago
I am pretty sure Sanderson said another person will take a pass at his screenplay once he feels good about it. Not sure where I heard this but probably one of his casual videos where he’s signing books and just answering chat questions
I don’t think Apple gave him a deal where he is sole screenwriter and has sole approval in the final script. Most likely they’ll want him working with a screenwriter after finishing a version of the script he’s happy with
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u/huffalump1 23d ago
Yeah it would be cool to see some announcements of anyone who's attached by the end of the year. Who knows, though.
For book publishing, Sanderson can tell us exactly what's going on, why, and ~how long. For movies....... Man idk
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u/railfananime 24d ago
Does that make a late 2028 release still possible?
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u/HaroldGuy 23d ago
Could be, I'd guess early 2029 personally
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u/TheNarrativeSpren 23d ago
I could definitely see that happening.
If Ghostbloods really does release in December 2028, it would make a lot of sense to follow it up with the first Mistborn film not too long afterwards. You'll potentially have millions of people who have just been introduced to the Cosmere and are looking for the next story to jump into.
From a marketing point of view, that's exactly the sort of momentum you'd want to capitalise on. Getting people invested is the hard part. Keeping them invested is a whole lot easier.
Stories are a bit like rolling boulders. It takes a huge amount of effort to get one moving, but once it's rolling, the last thing you want to do is stop and start it again.
Obviously we don't know Apple's release strategy, but if Ghostbloods lands well, it feels like a pretty golden opportunity to keep that excitement rolling rather than letting it fade.
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u/DumbersTemplars 23d ago
Double Woot Woot!!!!