Brandon Sanderson Says the Mistborn Movie Is 'Still Many Years Off' Despite a Finished First Draft

Ever since Brandon Sanderson revealed his partnership with Apple TV to adapt his Cosmere universe, he's been very transparent about the process. He's given regular updates via his YouTube channel, though he has consistently stated that it will be a while until we can actually watch this movie.

But how long exactly will we have to wait? IGN had the chance to interview Sanderson and ask him just how far away he thinks the Mistborn adaptation actually is. His answer, while disappointing for fans of the Cosmere books, is about what you'd expect.

"I would imagine this is still many years off," Sanderson told IGN. "I have to finish revisions on it, then will begin the hunt for a director, which is probably the single most important decision that we'll make. Visual effects these days can take a good 18 months on a big film, or more. So even once we've filmed (which I imagine is a few years away), it could be two years before the film is ready for release. So let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Right now, my primary focus in that sphere is making the screenplay the best possible version of itself."

Going off of Sanderson's comments here, it seems like it could be a really long wait for the Mistborn movie to actually come to fruition. The timeline he laid out would suggest that it could be almost five years until Apple TV and Sanderson's team are actually able to produce a movie. That would mean we may not even see the film until 2031.

These are, of course, only estimates based on Sanderson's understanding of Hollywood and just how long everything takes, but it's the most specific timeline we've gotten from the author so far. For fans who have been hyped since the original announcement back in February of this year, that's a surprisingly long time to wait.

The good news is that while Sanderson's movie adaptation is still a long ways off, his next book in the Mistborn series is coming a lot sooner. After finishing his first draft of the Mistborn movie, the author confirmed that he's started up work again on the first book in Mistborn Era 3, titled Ghost Bloods. This era is expected to take place well in the future of Scadriel and is set to release in December 2028.