A few years ago Joseph Gordon-Levitt sought to adapt Nail Gaima’s acclaimed, sprawling Sandman comic for the big screen. After months of silence, it was quietly dropped in 2016 and nothing has really happened with it since. That kind of development limbo has been the precursor to a number of stories involving Netflix’s acquisition of a major project, and the same now goes for Sandman.
Netflix and Warner Bros. are teaming on a live-action series based on Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, considered to be the best work of his career which is really saying something. David Goyer and Gaiman will serve as exec-producers with Wonder Woman writer Allan Heinberg acting as showrunner. Sandman centers on Dream aka Morpheus the Lord of Dreams, who escapes from imprisonment and sets out to find new purpose. Dream is joined by other members of the Endless, personifications of metaphysical concepts such as Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, and Destruction.
Gaiman is the author behind such recent TV adaptations Good Omens and American Gods, along with the movie Stardust. He’s one of the most popular writers working today (and my personal favorite) and his stories are always complex and rich in mythology. The character Lucifer, who also has a TV series on Netflix, was a character in Sandman.
To make this a reality it’s going to take a lot of time and, apparently, a lot of money. THR says this is the “most expensive TV series that DC Entertainment has ever done”, which may explain why they didn’t just put it on their DC Universe streaming platform.
