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Cosmere fans- Brandon Sanderson has a Film deal

Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to write script for first film.

DMG Entertainment has nabbed film and licensing rights to “Cosmere,” Brandon Sanderson’s acclaimed series of interconnected fantasy novels. The entertainment and media company has committed to spending $270 million, which will cover half of the money needed to back the first three movies made from Sanderson’s canon. That makes it one of the largest literary deals of the year. DMG beat out several interested parties for rights to the series. As part of the pact, insiders say Sanderson will receive a minimum guarantee on each film that is produced, as well as a rich backend, allowing the author to make millions.

The “Cosmere” comprises the bulk of Sanderson’s writings, with DMG likening it to acquiring a comic book universe rather than a single book franchise. The books are a mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, and they unfold in a number of different worlds and time periods, but are unified by an intricate system of magic that drives the plots.

DMG is fast-tracking an adaptation of Sanderson’s “The Way of Kings,” the first in the author’s series, “The Stormlight Archive,” and has hired screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the writing team behind several “Saw” films, to adapt the book. DMG founder Dan Mintz will produce the film, with Sanderson and Joshua Bilmes serving as executive producers. DMG also intends on simultaneously adapting the first book in Sanderson’s “Mistborn” series. It has yet to decide on a screenwriter for the project.

Sanderson’s books’ global sales top 10 million copies, making him one of the few top-selling authors without a produced movie of his work.

“DMG is all about global entertainment brands built cinematically for the worldwide audience, and Sanderson’s library of present and future material provides one of the greatest story and character universes ever created,” said Mintz in a statement.

“The people at DMG aren’t just producers or financiers. They’re fans,” Sanderson said in a statement. “From the first moment we met, I knew they understood my vision and goals for the Cosmere, and I’ve been excited to work with them in bringing their vision for the universe to the screen.”

DMG has a publicly-listed Chinese arm, DMG Yinji, that gives it access to the world’s second-largest film market. It has been very active acquiring literary properties, recently nabbing Ken Liu’s “Grace of Kings” trilogy. The studio’s upcoming projects include John Curran’s political drama “Chappaquiddick,” the Felicity Jones and Nicholas Hoult thriller “Collide,” and the Ed Helms and Owen Wilson comedy “Bastards.”

Melton and Dunstan’s upcoming projects include “Scary Stories” at CBS, as well as “The Reckoning,” a pitch the pair sold recently Paramount with Platinum Dunes producing and Michael Chaves directing.

Tor Books is Sanderson’s publisher. He is represented by Debbie Deuble-Hill and Steve Fisher at APA, Joshua Bilmes at JABberwocky, and attorney Matt Sugarman at Weintraub Tobin. Paradigm’s David Boxerbaum, Underground’s Trevor Engelson, and attorney Dave Feldman represent Melton and Dunstan.

I am happy that I will get to see Stormlight Archive and the rest of his books on film. I really hope they are good even though I am not quite sure as to why the writers of Saw are going to adapt Way of Kings :confused:
I would have preferred a quality TV series just so that nothing is rushed, but I am hoping that they make a few films from way of kings alone.

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Oh… Alright well… People can grow over time.

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yeah I was reading the article excitedly ( :itmejpexcite: ) then when I reached that part :itmejpwtf:

Hopefully they know how to write fantasy… as I said on Discord If this ends up sucking it would hurt me.

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They better not fuck this up. Way of Kings is one of my favorite books, but fantasy books in Hollywood dont have a very good track record. I would have felt much better with HBO or Netflix making it into a TV show.

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There is no physical way they can properly condense his books into coherent movies unless they are all three hours long.

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I have no clue how much it takes to make a triple A movie and $540 million for three movies sounds decent, but Way of Kings and Mistborn are going to be very expensive to make, a large number of locations, and special effects out the wazoo.
I think starting with the Way of Kings is a mistake, it is very ambitious start it’s one of the harder books to adapt, but i think Cosmere started with TWoK so that is where Sanderson wants the movies to start

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A TV-series would have been better, but hope they know what they are doing. I would be afraid of the movies spoiling the books, but Sanderson is probably one of few writers that can actually write books faster than they can be adopted into movies :stuck_out_tongue:

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He writes tons of books. The only problem is that he never releases the book you are actualy waiting for :smiley: Then you read the new book, get hyped about what is about to happen in the next one and of course he releases something else. :itmejpexcite:

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Mistborn’s going to be a movie? Please be Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and not Eragon.

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Kingkiller chronicles aren’t gonna be super effecty.

They are fairly low fantasy for the most part, as of yet anyway.

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Kingkiller Chronicles are by Patrick Rothfuss, and with all the set locations would still be expensive

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I think they would need to be five hours+ and still would cut too much material.

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Honestly it is the entire cosmere universe, so they should hold with The way of kings until all the books are done. The movies could be great, but the way the book is set up it references future events too much that if we don’t have the complete story.

In this case all the movies to base it from, those movies would flop.

I’m imagining he’ll start with mistborn or one of his shorter series of books in his universe.

But no, I don’t think king killer would be too expensive compared to The Way of Kings. The way of kings definetly has more elements to it that would require expensive VFX and CGI than the kingkiller chronicles so far.

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weird that they are making Mistborn and Stormlight Archive films at the same time.

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In a way I think this kind of material would be better suited to TV. The production levels of TV shows are reaching the point where I think someone like Amazon, HBO or Netflix could pull it off.

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