Per THR, a Sandman TV series is in the works at Netflix. Neil Gaiman‘s beloved comic is heading to the streaming giant for a massive price tag, reportedly the the most expensive TV deal that Warner Bros. has ever conducted.
Why are Warner Bros. involved? Because they’ve been attempting to turn Sandman into a feature film since the 90s, and still owned the rights. Eric Heisserer (Arrival) was attached to write the script as recently as 2016. But Netflix have now paid a hefty sum to bring the adaptation to them, with Gaiman and David Goyer on board as executive producers.
Wonder Woman screenwriter Allen Heinberg will write the series and serve as showrunner. Gaiman will be heavily involved, as his bestselling magnum opus finally gets the chance to be seen as the live-action screen experience fans have pined for.
Sandman ran for 75 issues, and tells the many stories of Morpheus, an immortal entity who controls the world of dreams. The character is one of the Endless, an omnipotent set of siblings that includes Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium. Morpheus is also known as Dream, to keep the D motif up.
The series won numerous awards during its run and has since been hailed as one of the great comic book works. Along with Swamp Thing and Hellblazer, it put Vertigo Comics on the map as a darker, more literary alternative to the mass of superhero comics that usually dominated shelves.
As mentioned, attempts to turn Sandman into a feature film franchise go back to the 1990s. Warner Bros. -the parent company of Vertigo – pushed the project through multiple incarnations and writers in the 90s and early 2000s. It eventually toiled away in development purgatory.
Gaiman, whose work has been adapted for TV before with American Gods and Amazon’s new show Good Omens, announced in late 2013 that he was teaming with Joseph Gordon-Levitt for a feature film that wound up being set up at New Line (owned by Warner Bros.). Gordon-Levitt was set to both star and direct, but he eventually dropped out following creative differences with the studio.
WB reportedly took a Sandman TV pitch to multiple outlets in recent months, including HBO. They passed because of the high price tag attached, and also because they have various big shows in development. Netflix then swooped in to snap it up as they continue to search for potentially huge IP that could become the next Stranger Things.
Since cancelling their Marvel TV shows, Netflix has aggressively pursued big-name IP such as The Chronicles Of Narnia and the works of Roald Dahl. Exclusive new takes on beloved books and shows is pretty much a surefire way to increase subscribers, not that Netflix needs any more.
So this is great news for Sandman fans. They have waited years for news like this, and Netflix is probably the best place a TV version of Sandman could have ended up. Expect to hear plenty regarding this project over the next year.
#Peace.Love.Sandman
