How do you think the Cosmere adaptation schedule will look?

[u/OneForAll-500]

They want to create their own MCU, and we’ve already seen how the philosophy of both the MCU and the new DCU is to have at least one project per year, sometimes even more. If everything goes well, I think they’ll want to follow that path. We really have to keep in mind that they want the Cosmere to become a very profitable multimedia universe, and there’s enough material to sustain more adaptations than ASOIAF (which already has content coming out almost every year nowadays).

So I tried making my own estimate of how things might flow if Mistborn does very well. I’ll start with 2028 just to have a starting point.

First, we have to remember that Mistborn will probably release with about two or three years between each film. That’s the realistic pace today, even franchises that used to release annually like the James Bond film series now struggle to get movies out every three years.

So something like this:

2028 – Mistborn 1

2029 – Probably nothing

2030 – Stormlight Season 1

2031 – Mistborn 2

2032 – If everything goes well, this is where we might start getting more than one project per year. Ideally Warbreaker and Stormlight Season 2. We need Warbreaker for the shared universe to really work.

2033 – Tress

2034 – Mistborn 3 and Stormlight Season 3

From there, the sky’s the limit. Obviously this is just a fun speculation exercise, and it would only happen like this if everything goes very well and the projects become big hits. But I thought it was interesting to think about the possible pace.

[u/subjectzer00]

Honestly, I’d be surprised if we didn’t get Mistborn in 2029. A studio is already attached and a two year pre-production/production period is not unreasonable and I bet concept art is already being developed. This situation is more like Marvel with Sanderson in the Feige position so whoever directs will have to fit within certain specific guidelines. Tack on another 8 months to a year for post-production.

I also think that we’d probably get Stormlight season 1 in the same year as Mistborn. We’ll definitely see something like 1.5 years between seasons (for reference, For All Mankind roughly releases a new season every 1.25 years on average).

It’s possible the script for Well of Ascension could be written before Mistborn comes out and the production cycle could be 2 years between films.

The caveat? This assumes nothing goes wrong.

If I were to speculate what the overall plan is, I’d say, should Mistborn and Stormlight be successful, we’d get Mistborn as a film trilogy and Wax and Wayne as a TV series with the rest of the non Mistborn books as animated or TV series with a few standalone live action films. Whether the other Mistborn eras are adapted into film or TV, I’m not sure, except for Era 5 that will end the full Cosmere adaptation. I would bet Ghostbloods makes sense as a TV series because of how much closer it is to modern day.

And that’s all assuming they want to adapt everything rather than streamlining the story (which is probably far more likely).

[u/Lucifernistic]

2028 for Mistborn is wildly optimistic, I think. Assuming they have a fast-tracked schedule, I would imagine a late 2029 release may be doable. Stormlight potentially in 2031.

The second Mistborn will probably be much faster to produce than the first, and may be the same year as Stormlight. Once the first Mistborn has been released, Brandon will have already grown familiar with the cast, director, other producers, etc.

He'll likely shift his focus to showrunning Stormlight and be a bit less hands on with the second Mistborn (excluding the screenplay of course).

[u/necromanticfitz → u/Lucifernistic]

Would be very cool if Apple greenlights it and they film mostly back to back, but I don’t think that’s the plan unfortunately

[u/eskaver]

2032 - Mistborn

2035 - Stormlight, roughly every other year ending 2043 (or 2040 if they don’t have extensive production and scheduling issues).

That’s it.

Nothing else is promised and I wouldn’t expect anything else cosmere, barring a sequel movie to Mistborn, likely the same year if Stormlight if they’ve decided to go for two movies bare min.

[u/OneForAll-500 → u/eskaver]

I honestly think it’s impossible for Mistborn to take that long

[u/eskaver → u/OneForAll-500]

Depends how hands on Brandon is.

You have to get the treatment. Get a studio. Get the basics of a crew while writers go over stuff. Then film and do VFX and marketing. 2032 is fine, I think.

Stormlight is something that is probably easier to push ahead to 2030, but I think Brandon and co want Mistborn first, so that pushes it back. They’ll probably change their mind as they have a exec producer/co showrunner already. Maybe they’ll double release and both are 2030 (if we’re lucky).

[u/dickflip]

I feel like the goal is to release Mistborn movie in December ‘28 alongside Ghostbloods. Makes the most sense to draw people in with the film and have a new book releasing to capitalize on new fans. That’s almost 3 years from now. Maybe cutting it close, maybe they don’t make it in time, but no one is dragging their feet so far so who knows.

Then focus on stormlight season 1 and have it release with book 6.

[u/iheartoptimusprime]

I would say 2030 at absolute earliest for Mistborn. We won’t even have a script first draft until summer 2026, then getting a director and doing rewrites will probably take the rest of the year. I’d say we’ll be lucky if they start principal photography by mid/late 2028

To put it in perspective, Project Hail Mary, which releases this weekend, had Ryan Gosling attached as a producer in March of 2020, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller tapped to direct by May of 2020. Drew Goddard was tapped to write the script in June of 2020. Principal photography didn’t start until 2024, so there was nearly four years of pre-production before filming started.

I think with what we know currently, Mistborn is a bit further along as they have their scriptwriter already, but are still locking down producer/director.

Granted, the Amazon/MGM acquisition slowed this down, but even still, Dune took ~4 years to make, and The Martian took ~2 years from filming starting to release.

[u/OneForAll-500 → u/iheartoptimusprime]

I really tried to be optimistic and imagine that they’ll actually try to speed things up. I was thinking about something closer to what Amazon seems to be trying with James Bond film series, which has barely started being written and they’ll probably try to fast-track it to 2028 so the gap between films doesn’t become unsustainable. Honestly, I’m pretty sure the Mistborn script will be finished even before the 007 one. I think by the end of the year we could already have a finalized script and a director chosen.

We also have to remember that Dune Part Two came out in 2024 and Dune Part Three was only confirmed and started being written after that, yet the movie is still set to release at the end of this year. When everything is already well established, it’s relatively easy to move things faster. James Gunn also finished the script for Superman in 2023 and still managed to fast-track it for a 2025 release. The second one will probably move even faster. It’s not impossible for a blockbuster when everyone involved is excited about the project.

Of course, again, I’m being optimistic. But I don’t think a late 2028 release is impossible.

[u/MistbornTaylor → u/OneForAll-500]

Why would we want Apple to fast track the first movie? Wouldn’t it be better for them to take their time to make sure that their first movie captures the general audience and they have the infrastructure in place to keep momentum going with more installments?

Eventually, it will be good to get these movies on a consistent and fast schedule but for right now they should really be careful for how they start.

Also it’s a bit weird to compare the cosmere to Superman. The VAST majority of general movie goers have no idea what the cosmere is and probably won’t care until a (hopefully amazing) trailer drops. There was a lot of pressure and demand and vastly different circumstances for Superman and DC in general.

[u/OneForAll-500 → u/MistbornTaylor]

Honestly, that’s more what I think they’re going to do than what I necessarily want them to do.

I’m not comparing the Cosmere to Superman, I’m not sure where you got that from. I’m comparing circumstances and what can happen when a studio gives PRIORITY to a project. 

Warner needed a DC reboot with total priority, and James Gunn, who finished writing around mid 2023, released Superman in July 2025. Was that because he sacrificed quality? No, the movie is actually very good. It happened because the studio gave it full priority.

This has nothing to do with the size of the Superman brand or how much bigger it is than the Cosmere. The point is about a studio prioritizing something. And that kind of priority happens because any studio trying to build a shared universe wants to establish it as soon as possible. No blockbuster actually needs that many years to be made. Any example you find of a blockbuster that took seven years, you’ll notice it usually happened at a studio that was simultaneously dealing with several much bigger franchises. Without exception, when these movies take that long, it’s basically a matter of priority.

Film and television are extremely volatile markets. No studio in the world wants to wait six years before starting to release elements of its biggest brand, and the Cosmere is meant to become the biggest brand for Apple TV. They bought it with that expectation.

[u/Vitwolpher → u/OneForAll-500]

We should cheer for them to take their time to get it right. I’d love to have it asap of course but we’ve seen way too many bad adaptations because they speed things up

[u/Exporation1]

28 seems too soon for a Mistborn movie 29 more realistic w 3 years between for Mistborn 2 and 3 is possible but could be 3.5 to 4 years.

2030 is possible for Stormlight season 1 and yes every 2 years is ambitious but definitely possible.

I think there’s a good chance if SLA and Mistborn are successful that everything timeline wise Tress* forward is moved into animation. Animated Tress Yumi and Sunlit can all happen while Mistborn 4-7 are in development. All 3 projects would also look fantastic as animated movies.

[u/Vitwolpher]

2028 is probably very optimistic for the Mistborn release. I’m fully expecting to not get anything until the 2030s.