Netflix’s live-action take on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is casting again, amid the coronavirus delays. Gaiman himself confirmed that they are slowly coming back to work with the production design group in full swing as well.
The author and show creator revealed some details about The Sandman series production during the DC FanDome event on Saturday, Aug. 22. Gaiman said that he couldn’t reveal much about the Netflix show, but he confirmed that it’s going to take place in the modern setting. The graphic novels source takes place in the ’80s.
“The Sandman is a very compressed story; even though it takes place all through time and space, that’s where that story takes place. So now what we’re doing with Netflix is saying, ‘Okay, the time this story starts is not 1988, it’s now,'” the creator revealed. “And how does that change the story? What does that give us? What does that mean? What’s that gonna do to the story? That is very liberating.”
Gaiman is very vague about the Netflix project, but he did say that they had a chance to fix the scripts and make it “close to perfect.”
“Due to COVID, with every other piece of television being made around the world right now, somebody pushed a giant pause button, and we’ve taken advantage of our pause button,” Gaiman said.
Show and character details
Netflix confirmed in July 2019 that it would be adapting The Sandman as a TV show with Warner Bros. Allan Heinberg will serve as the showrunner with Gaiman as the executive producers. David S. Goyer is also on board the project as the executive producer as well.
For years, Hollywood has attempted to do a live-action version of this bestselling graphic novel, but story development has been challenging. Gaiman and Goyer, however, found an idea to make the stories work with the Netflix audience after doing an Audible version of The Sandman.
Gaiman told NPR that much like the audiobooks, the TV show would take the adaptation loosely. However, it will still be faithful to the graphic novel source.
As far as casting is concerned, the production hasn’t announced who shall play the illustrious character of Dream/Morpheus. The show needs an actor with a commanding presence to play this arrogant character. The series also needs to cast Death, The Corinthian, and Anna, and the Burgesses.
The Sandman season 1 will cover the comic book series’ issues one to eight. In total, the show has 75 issues, which means there’s a potential for the show to go for five seasons.
Lucifer’s appearance
Incidentally, Netflix’s fun detective series Lucifer is part of The Sandman tale. His solo story is a spinoff, but it’s unclear if the character will be part of the new series.
Lucifer appeared towards the second half of The Sandman, so a potential third our fourth season appearance might be hatched. It will also give Tom Ellis a chance to reprise his character if The Sandman becomes successful on Netflix.
Image courtesy of Neil Gaiman/YouTube