The Sandman on Netflix is a “truthful adaptation” of Neil Gaiman’s comic

After decades of attempts to bring Neil Gaiman’s hugely ambitious comic The Sandman to the screen, it’s finally being made by Netflix. The show entered production in October 2020 and the first season is not in post-production. Producer David S. Goyer believes the show stays true to the comics, even when it tackles the wildest of storylines!

The Sandman follows Morpheus, the personification of Dreams, as he goes about his duties as the ruler of the Dreaming. Dreams can get pretty wild, so the entire comic run has an ethereal feel to it, and unpredictability is the name of the game. Whether it’s talking cats or a nightmare with teeth in place of his eyes running a Cereal (Killer) Convention, there’s a lot to digest.

How does the TV show handle such craziness? Speaking to Collider, producer David S. Goyer — who has previously worked on projects like Blade and The Dark Knight — weighed in.

"I think it’s a very truthful adaptation, and some of the individual issues that we adapted, that were perhaps the trickiest standalone issues in Gaiman’s run, have ended up being the most interesting and genre-bending episodes. And I’m really proud of those."

As well as The Sandman, Goyer is also working on a live-action adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi classic series Foundation. Both of these series have spent a long time in development hell, and now they’re both coming to fruition at the same time! “It’s very strange to me that after literally decades of me dreaming about working on Foundation or Sandman, that both would come my way at almost exactly the same time after decades of various attempts failing,” he said. “It’s funny how that worked out. But I do think in the case of Foundation or Sandman, a streaming show was perfect… really the only way that the magic of what Asimov and Gaiman had done could be fully realized.”

We’re lucky to have so many great adaptations coming out these days. Let’s hope both Foundation and The Sandman live up to the hype.

Boyd Holbrook teases his role as The Corinthian in The Sandman

Remember when we mentioned a serial killer with mouths where his eyes should be? That would be the Corinthian, one of the most memorable characters from The Sandman. The nightmare creature created by Dream is played by Boyd Holbrook (Logan, The Predator) in the Netflix show. Having finished principle photography, Holbrook gave Collider an update:

"Yeah, we just started the post-production, so I did ADR on a couple of episodes, and yeah, all that’s starting to come together, too. Again, seeing bits and pieces of it, just rough cuts and raw footage, stuff like that. So it’s really fascinating to see, especially with that project too. Because you can see how stylized it is."

Holbrook also talked about the Corinthian’s nightmarish appearance. It’ll be translated accurately to the show, jagged teeth-eyes and all. “Yeah, but really tastefully done,” Holbrook said. “Yeah. It’s legit. I think so.”

Is “tastefully” a pun on the Corinthian’s unique ocular features? I like to think so.

The Sandman does not have a release date yet. However, we’re sure to get more details during Netflix’s TUDUM event on September 25! In the meantime, Audible’s The Sandman: Act II drops next week. You can pre-order it here.

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