Skip to content

Neil Gaiman Updates Fans on Netflix’s The Sandman: “Everything Was Ready to Go Into Production”

5
Share

Neil Gaiman Updates Fans on Netflix’s The Sandman: “Everything Was Ready to Go Into Production”

Home / Neil Gaiman Updates Fans on Netflix’s The Sandman: “Everything Was Ready to Go Into Production”
Books The Sandman

Neil Gaiman Updates Fans on Netflix’s The Sandman: “Everything Was Ready to Go Into Production”

By

Published on April 20, 2020

5
Share
expansive SFF series 9+ books Sandman Neil Gaiman

Here’s some excellent news to buoy you through another Monday in quarantine: Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of The Sandman is making a lot more progress than we thought. The news comes courtesy of Neil Gaiman himself, who in a Tumblr post last week said “everything was ready to go into production” before COVID-19 shut down the entertainment industry.

“It’s going really well, except it’s kind of hibernating right now until people start making TV again,” the author wrote, in answer to a fan’s question. “The scripts for the first season are written, casting had started, directors hired, sets were being built. Everything was ready to go into production, and then we moved into a pause. As soon as the world is ready to make TV drama, Sandman will move smoothly back into being made. In the meantime, we are taking the opportunity to get the scripts as good as we can.”

Buy the Book

Preludes and Nocturnes
Preludes and Nocturnes

Preludes and Nocturnes

This is the biggest update we’ve had since November, when Gaiman shared a few details about the show with CBC’s Day 6 program. In the interview, he revealed that the present-day timeline of the adaptation will be moved from the ’80s to a contemporary setting, but will otherwise “stay faithful” to the original comics. He also confirmed that at least Dream’s look will constantly change (although it’s unclear if this will be true for the rest of the Endless), and said the creative team hasn’t said no to any familiar DC characters (who these might be, aside from Constantine, remains unknown).

Earlier that month, Gaiman said he had completed the first episode and was already plotting the first two seasons with his co-writers, showrunner Allan Heinberg and executive producer David Goyer. Before that, in July, he’d revealed that season 1 will be 11 episodes long and follow “Preludes and Noctures and a little more.” Here’s what we think that “little bit more” could be.

In other Sandman-related news, the DC series is also being adapted into a multi-part Audible drama, creative directed and executive produced by Gaiman himself. He will also serve as narrator to an “all-star cast,” the members of whom have yet to be revealed. Meanwhile, frequent collaborator Dirk Maggs (who adapted the NeverwhereStardust, Good Omens, and Anansi Boys radio plays) will write the script, direct, and executive produce.

Fans should be getting this adaptation way sooner, with the English version planned for a summer release, as of March. There’s no word yet on when Netflix’s The Sandman might resume production.

About the Author

Stubby the Rocket

Author

Learn More About Stubby
Subscribe
Notify of
Avatar


5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Avatar
5 years ago

Would LOVE to see Tom Ellis reprise his role as Lucifer, since Sandman was where the character started (or, at least, the DC version of the character…)

Avatar
5 years ago

I don’t think you can really call Sandman a “cult series.”  It’s one of the best selling and most lauded comic series of all time, and I believe still the only one to win a World Fantasy Award (because they immediately changed the rules to prevent it from happening again).

Avatar
wizard clip
5 years ago

@2: “Cult” is one of those terms that has been tossed around so casually by pop culture journalists over the last few years that it no longer has any real meaning.  It gets applied to any property that has an ardent or longtime fanbase, even if that fanbase is in the hundreds of millions.  Honestly, I’ve seen Star Wars referred to in articles as a “cult classic.”

(Side note:  Is Sandman referred to as a “cult series” in the article?  I must have missed it).

Avatar
5 years ago

@3 – holy shit, they edited it after my comment was posted, the penultimate paragraph originally read “the cult series is also being adapted…”  

 

Also, @1, I do not want anyone who was involved with that abominable TV show to get within ten miles of a Sandman adaptation.  That thing had nothing to do with the comic it was supposedly based on except the setting.  It’d be like making a TV show called “Sandman” that featured Morpheus as a psychiatrist with a different quirky patient every week.

Avatar
Huli
5 years ago

sigh….Corona just fooken shit up left and right