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Can Brandon Sanderson Help Apple Break Hollywood’s Fantasy Spell?

Brandon Sanderson’s vast Cosmere universe could give Apple the long-running fantasy franchise its streaming business still lacks.

Recently, fantasy author Brandon Sanderson announced that he had finished penning the first draft of his Mistborn screenplay. This was big news among his devoted following, because it’s the first on-screen adaptation of his stellar seven-novel Mistborn series. In a worst-case scenario, we’re about to see billions of dollars lit on fire in real time. But in a best-case scenario, this will be looked back on as the point at which the blockbuster hierarchy first began to shift.

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Sanderson and Apple have partnered to bring his sprawling Cosmere literary universe to both the big and small screens in one of the most ambitious content plans in recent memory. Not only is it a desperately needed big swing for the subscale Apple, but it’s also an attempt to build new franchises in a new way. 

Hollywood doesn’t have an IP problem; it has a pipeline problem. Anyone paying a lick of attention to Hollywood over the last 15 years knows that established franchises and IP extensions are among the most popular offerings across film and TV. Harry Potter. The Lord of The Rings. Marvel. The Hunger Games. Game of Thrones. The last quarter century birthed new transportive fantasy worlds that transcended their source material to become pop culture pillars. Yet lately, new big-budget hopeful franchise launchers have mostly failed to ignite. Even when a new-to-screen movie is based on popular source........

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