There’s a long way to go, but we finally know a little about the Mistborn movie
Earlier this year, Apple acquired the adaptation rights to Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series, with the intention of turning Mistborn into a feature film and Stormlight Archive into an Apple TV series. Recently, Sanderson confirmed that he has finished and submitted the first draft for the Mistborn screenplay. If that sounds like an incredibly quick turnaround, that’s because it really is. The author’s productivity may be legendary at this point, but it’s nevertheless impressive to see it carry over to a new medium.
And in typical Sanderson fashion, the author has been sharing updates about his progress along the way. While many of those updates have been relatively minor taken on their own, months’ worth of those status reports have at least given us an idea of where the film is at and what we should expect from it at this stage. There’s a long way to go, but here’s an early look at where things stand.
There Are Many, Many More Drafts to Come
Late in July, Sanderson confirmed that the first draft of the Mistborn screenplay has been completed. Given that he previously stated that the script was about 2% finished in February, that’s certainly quite the quick turnaround. Would we really expect anything less?
While tracking his progress draft was prolonged slightly by his desire to go back and revise some existing material. So while he’s been sharing “percentage” updates along the way, those updates only really represented new material and not the numerous revisions
Sanderson says he’s proud of the first draft but notes that it is indeed a true first draft. There are many more drafts to come and Mistborn seemingly isn’t close to starting shooting yet.
The Lack of Internal Monologues Has Been the Biggest Challenge So Far
Early in the writing process, Sanderson noted that he felt the biggest challenge would be making the cuts required to turn Mistborn into a functional film screenplay. However, the author noted that he ended up following the structure of some of his favorite heist movies that Mistborn was initially inspired by (such as Sneakers and Ocean’s 11) in order to find what proved to be a functional structure for the adaptation.
Instead, the author says the real problem was learning to write around internal monologues. It’s one of Sanderson’s favorite devices that just doesn’t really translate to screenplays. Well…I suppose it might if the movie was going to feature constant narration, but since Sanderson said he had to reconsider internal monologues “line by line” when penning the adaptation, it seems like he’s going in a different direction.
The Movie Follows a Slightly New Continuity Rather than Try to Portray Absolutely Everything
Despite the line by line idea, Sanderson has said that he does not intend for the Mistborn movie to be a 1:1 adaptation of the book. It obviously can’t be given the aforementioned differences and formats and the cuts those differences require, but Sanderson says the differences run deeper than that.
Specifically, Sanderson notes that the movie will potentially feature a “new continuity” that will be compatible with the books but fundamentally different in some notable ways. As an example, Sanderson says that Clubs will likely not be a major character in the movie but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t exist. He may be in the rooms for some of the scenes, but he might not actually have much to do during them.
The basic idea seems to be to maintain canonical continuity where it matters most but to make economic cuts where possible, even if they seemingly impact notable characters.
The Goal Is to Build the Screenplay Around a Few Iconic Scenes Rather Than Create New Ones
Despite the cuts, Sanderson has stated that he doesn’t necessarily believe in the philosophy that converting a 500-page book into a roughly 140-page screenplay requires “inventing new scenes.” Instead, the author is trying to identify the most iconic moments from the book and use them as the foundation for the film’s story.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be new scenes (you could argue that the absence of certain characters in previous scenes makes the adaptation of them fundamentally new), but Sanderson certainly seems a bit irked by the idea that an already condensed story would feature entirely new scenes while existing scenes are left on the cutting room floor.
The Magic System Will Be Simplified for the Movie
Here’s a (potentially) big one. So far, Sanderson has been adamant about the need to simplify Mistborn’s magic system for the purposes of the screenplay.
“I think I’m going to have to downplay a few of the abilities,” Sanderson explained on an episode of the Very Really Good podcast. “I don’t want to have so many things for people to keep track of. I’m looking at sort of…doing things where the things you like from the book are there behind the scenes, but we’re not talking about them. Like, all the powers are there, but we’re emphasizing a few of them. We may not even mention the other powers, but you’ll be able to, if you’ve read the books, see that they are still canon and things like that.”
The approach to the film’s magic certainly sounds similar to how Sanderson will handle technically “cut” characters like Clubs. It all still exists, but we’re likely not getting more than a brief explanation of how it all works, and on-screen action will probably be pretty economical from a quality vs. quantity perspective.
Vin Will Likely Be Aged Up
In the Mistborn books we meet Vin when she is about 16 years old. In the movie, Vin will likely be aged up to be around 18 or 19.
Sanderson explains that he would probably make Vin older in the first place if he was writing that story today as most of her dialog and actions feel truer to someone who is slightly older. He also noted that the reason she was younger in the first place was that he was inspired by the era of younger protagonists seen in works like The Little Mermaid, but that he feels that trope is a bit played out by this point.
Furthermore, Sanderson believes that Vin will likely be played by someone in their early 20s.
Sanderson Is Really Trying to Avoid Reshoots
It’s not entirely clear how much control Sanderson really has over this, but the author has expressed his desire to follow the “James Gunn” philosophy by trying to turn in a fantastic script that won’t require any notable reshoots.
Sanderson says he believes that reshoots ultimately create budget, production, and continuity problems. Again, though, Sanderson has noted that the movie doesn’t have a director yet (and it obviously hasn’t started filming), so this seems like more of a wish than a demand. For his part, Sanderson seems focused on spending enough time on the initial script to greatly reduce the odds of reshoots down the line.
So Far, It Sounds Like Apple Has Given Sanderson Quite a Bit of Creative Freedom
One minor (but potentially interesting) thing to note about Sanderson’s comments so far is how little input Apple has seemingly had on the project thus far.
Sanderson noted that Apple began giving some feedback when he was about halfway through this draft of the screenplay and began asking for some revisions when the script was about 90% done. Otherwise, it seems like he’s being afforded quite a bit of the creative control that fans hoped he would have following his mega deal with the studio.
Matthew Byrd
Matthew Byrd is the News Editor of Reactor. He has been featured in various publications and has written numerous works of fiction, but he mostly likes talking about his dog and bad movies. You can find him on Bluesky at @mbyrd.bsky.social.
Learn More About Matthew
Apple TVfantasyMistbornmoviesnewsSanderson
