Many consider Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman to be one of the best comic books ever written. And at long last, it’s finally getting a live-action adaptation. Since June 2019, the series has been in development for Netflix, and it looks like Gaiman is very much excited about the project.
In a recent interview with RadioTimes (Via Bleeding Cool), Gaiman talked about why there hasn’t been a Sandman film or TV series to date.
“I’ve been saying for 30 years that I would rather have no Sandman than a bad Sandman. The problem with making a Sandman film is, the first question you get into is ‘What do you throw out?’ I’ve read lots of scripts that ranged from the appalling to ‘OK, they might be able to pull this off’. But you always read them going, ‘Well, it’s not quite Sandman. It’s taking some Sandman stuff from over here, and taking some Sandman stuff over there, and blending it together.'”
So, what’s different this time around? Well, a lot of it has to do with the streaming platform it’s going to be released on, and the creative freedom that comes with it.
“The joy for doing it as a Netflix series is we aren’t in the place where we’re throwing things out. In fact, it’s the other way round. Sometimes that means that a lot more stuff gets to happen because we have room for it. But we’re never throwing things out, and we’re never abandoning things. And that, in itself, is a complete joy.”
Netflix describes the series as follows:
A rich blend of modern myth and dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama, and legend are seamlessly interwoven, The Sandman follows the people and places affected by Morpheus, the Dream King, as he mends the cosmic–and human–mistakes he’s made during his vast existence.
