It’s been a few months since Brandon Sanderson officially confirmed he’d be working with Apple TV on Cosmere adaptations. Since then, he’s been consistently showcasing progress and snippets of new information on his weekly podcast, Intentionally Blank. In the most recent episode, he brought on his wife, Emily Sanderson, to discuss their review of season 1 of Apple TV’s Murderbot series.
“I think I would give it a nine,” Sanderson said, “but I also am comparing it to the books. It’s possible that this is a 10 because: Is there anything I can imagine they should have done better?”
The Murderbot series, which is based on Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries books, first premiered back in May 2025 on Apple TV and was critically received quite well. IGN’s own review gave it an 8 out of 10, which more closely matches the score Sanderson’s wife gave the series.
What does this have to do with the Stormlight Archive TV series, though? And why is he talking about it so long after the first season wrapped up? Well a little bit further into the podcast, he reveals a key detail about one of the execs for the show.
“It’s actually one of the same TV execs as on Stormlight, so I’m glad it was good because I watched it and I’m like ‘Oh. good. I sold him this,’ I didn’t know which exec I was going to get, but it is one of the execs on Murderbot,” Sanderson said.
Details about the Stormlight Archive series have been fairly few and far between since the original announcement, but Sanderson has stated before that he will be co-showrunner for the series once it actually starts. He has confirmed in his latest weekly update on YouTube that he is mostly focused on writing the script for the upcoming Mistborn movie, but will be working on getting a pilot together for Stormlight. And according to the progress bar on his website, that Mistborn screenplay is already 72% done.
Although both the Stormlight Archive series and Mistborn movie are still likely far off, this latest news seems like a positive signal from Sanderson himself. It’s also just another reason to check out Martha Well’s Murderbot books if you haven’t already. She just released a new novel in the series, titled Platform Decay, that you can read now.
Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and 10 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics — from TV series to books and the latest Pokémon games.
