Neil Gaiman is getting us fully hyped for Netflix’s adaptation of his beloved Sandman comic, promising an authentic experience with lots of layers to it.
Last year, we learned that Netflix was going to make a show based on Neil Gaiman’s beloved comic series The Sandman, about a family of eternal beings who personify different aspects of the human condition. The main character is Dream, also known as Morpheus and other names, who has dominion over the realm of dreams. After being captured and held captive for decades by humans trying to imprison his sister Death, Dream goes on a long journey, learning about the nature of his existence and the value of change. The series takes place within the DC Universe and incorporates elements of fantasy, horror, and mythology. The first season of the show will have 11 episodes.
Neil Gaiman is an incredible author who’s penned more than a few iconic works. And The Sandman isn’t the only one that’s being adapted for TV. I recently read American Gods for the first time and was absolutely blown away, and we’re about to get a third season of Starz’s adaptation starring Ricky Whittle as lead character Shadow Moon. There are some changes to the plot, but overall the series manages to capture the whimsy, magic, and grandeur of the source material. Hopefully, The Sandman adaptation will be just as good!
Gaiman recently spoke to Yahoo about how excited he is for fans to see Netflix’s take on his work, with which he is pretty closely involved. “I’ve been watching dailies, but nothing produced the profound, emotional reaction on me that watching a camera test of our Morpheus in his glass prison did. I saw him and said, ‘Oh, this is Sandman.'”
We don’t know a lot about the casting of the show, but we have heard that English actor Tom Sturridge has been cast as Dream. The sooner we find out who’s playing Death and Desire and the rest, the better!
PARK CITY, UT – JANUARY 27: Tom Sturridge attends the “Velvet Buzzsaw” Premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 27, 2019 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images)
Gaiman also promised that the show will indeed live up to the dark horror of the comic. “It will be scary,” he said. “But it will be lots of other things, too, because the joy of Sandman is that it’s a lot of different things in the soup, and you can taste all the flavors.”
Indeed, The Sandman does have a ton of flavors to it, but we can definitely think of one horrific scene early on that he might be talking about. You see, while Morpheus is imprisoned, some of his tools fall into the wrong hands, including the hands of DC villain Doctor Destiny, who uses them to to horrible things to people in a diner. It even inspired a 30-minute fan film a while back:
Mostly, though, the author just raves about the upcoming show. “It feels so amazingly Sandman,” he said. “You won’t believe how Sandman it is.”
We will keep you updated as more news comes out about The Sandman!
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h/t ComicBook.com