Every fantasy adaptation since Game of Thrones has been billed as "the next Game of Thrones." The Wheel of Time? Next Game of Thrones. The Witcher? Same. The Rings of Power? Definitely. None of them were.
Now Apple TV+ is taking its shot with Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive, and the author is being admirably clear-eyed about what that means. In a recent interview, according to Winter is Coming, Sanderson explained he's studying both Tolkien and Game of Thrones to understand what works in adaptation.
Smart. Because those are the two poles of successful fantasy television: faithfulness vs. evolution.
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films worked because they understood the essence of Tolkien - the scope, the world-building, the mythic weight - while making necessary cuts and changes for cinema. Jackson knew what to keep and what to trim. That's the lesson: respect the source material's soul, not its every detail.
Game of Thrones (before the ending) worked because it exceeded expectations. The early seasons took George R.R. Martin's dense political intrigue and made it propulsive, accessible, and visually spectacular. It proved that fantasy could be prestige television. Then it ran out of books and imploded, which is the other lesson: don't outpace your source material.
Sanderson is keenly aware of this. He's explicitly committed to finishing the Stormlight books before the show catches up, telling interviewers he's That's learned behavior. couldn't finish before the show overtook him, and the result was... well, we all remember Season 8.
