Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is awesome. A 75-issue comic book that ran from 1989 through 1996, it tells the story of Morpheus, a god-like figure who presides over the realm of dreams, and how he struggles to change throughout eons of human history. Also present are his ragtag group of siblings, all them members of a group called the Endless: Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium. There’s also a sea monster, and Julius Caesar is in there, and did you know that Morpheus is the guy who made Shakespeare so good at writing plays? It’s wild, trippy, deeply felt and just all kinds of wonderful.
It’s also nigh-impossible to adapt as a live-action TV show, or at least it would have been until fairly recently. Sandman is bursting with visual creativity. The main characters are basically gods, after all, unbound by puny human things like space and time. They have adventures in ancient Greece, in outer space, during the outbreak of the plague in medieval Europe, in strange realms drawn from myth and imagination…it’s the kind of thing that would give any studio head heart palpitations.
But TV has come a long way in a short time. Shows like Game of Thrones have raised the bar on TV budgets, and Gaiman’s own Good Omens showed it’s possible to adapt quirkier, visually complex works with charm to spare. Is TV ready for a live-action Sandman adaptation? Gaiman thinks so:
A TV series definitely. We now have the budgets and technology to do it justice. https://t.co/epEwIY5fnp
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 19, 2019
Fantasy and sci-fi stories are having a renaissance right now. Amazon is readying shows based on The Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time and The Dark Tower. Netflix has The Witcher in the pipeline, Showtime is kicking in a Kingkiller Chronicle series, and HBO has a Game of Thrones prequel, an adaptation of His Dark Materials, and more on deck. It DOES seem like a good time for a Sandman show, but it’s going to take a nervy network to tackle it. Even with fantasy having its moment, Sandman is WEIRD, visually and creatively. That’s what makes it special, but also tricky to do right in live-action.
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But if someone does it, I’ll be there, because Sandman is incredible. How about you, Amazon? You seem to be making all the shows these days. Or you, Hulu? You want us to pay attention to you? Here’s a good way how. FX? I’ll take anything.
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