Neil Gaiman, Gwendoline Christie and others report from behind the scenes of Netflix’s The Sandman, which is looking as wonderful as I could have hoped.
The first issue if The Sandman came out in 1989, and right away it was clear this was something special. When the series wrapped up in 1996, Neil Gaiman had spun a tale as complex as anything else in fiction, a twisting journey into dreams that is still beloved today.
I may sound a bit breathless, but that’s because I’m excited: Netflix just released the first behind-the-scenes look at its adaptation of Gaiman’s masterwork, and it looks pretty bloody amazing. Watch:
Part of the reason The Sandman was never adapted before now is because there was never the will to do it right. It’s a sprawling, complex story that’s nominally about the immortal Lord of Dreams, aka Morpheus, one of several endless beings who each represent different aspects of human nature. But as strange as that sounds, The Sandman is so much weirder. We’ve got serial killers with mouths for eyes, the secret reason Shakespeare was so good, sea Leviathans so big you wonder how the ocean can contain them, and much more. I’m getting breathlessly effusive again and I don’t care.
Anyway, with the success of big fantasy shows like Game of Thrones, something like a televised version of The Sandman became possible, and I couldn’t be happier. Neil Gaiman puts it pretty succinctly when walking around the sets in that video: “Holy shit, this is amazing.”
We get a brief interview with star Tom Sturridge, who’s playing Morpheus, and I have to say he looks perfectly cast. Game of Thrones veteran Gwendoline Christie, who’s playing Lucifer, also weighs in: “I read The Sandman graphic novels so I knew that I simply had to be involved in this project, because something truly unique was going to happen,” she says. “The sets are vast, a great amount of detail and care has been put into how it’s being brought to life.” The rest of the cast is very impressive, as well.
“This is Sandman being made for people who love Sandman by people who love Sandman and I cannot wait until people see this,” Gaiman says. The only bad thing about this teaser is that we don’t get a release window.
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