Posted in: Netflix, streaming, TV | Tagged: bleeding cool, cable, comic books, Comics, dc dc comics, neil gaiman, netflix, sandman, streaming, television, tv, vertigo

"Sandman": Netflix Orders Neil Gaiman Comic Book Adaptation Straight to Series

Published Sun, 30 Jun 2019 17:30:00 -0500

by Ray Flook

Last updated Mon, 01 Jul 2019 02:57:33 -0500

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After years of talk, speculation, and supposed near deals to adapt renowned author Neil Gaiman's DC Comics-Vertigo comic book series Sandman – in both the film and television realms- it appears the Warner Bros. TV drama has found a home at Netflix. The move comes more than three years after an effort to bring the work to the big screen via New Line fell through, with the live-action series marking the most expensive television series DC Entertainment has moved forward on during its time.

Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman, Grey's Anatomy) will write and serve as showrunner on the series, which received a direct-to-series order. Gaiman is set to executive produce alongside David Goyer – with both having been attached to the original New Line feature film effort. An episode count is not known, and neither Netflix nor Warner Bros. would comment on the reports.

Gaiman's multi-genre tale centers on Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and the Endless, the powerful group of siblings: Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium. Based on reporting from The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. shopped the television project to a number of networks and streaming services – including "family member" HBO, who reportedly passed on the series based on the expected price tag attached. Netflix made the winning bid, seeing the series as a potential "tent pole" for the streamer as Game of Thrones was for HBO.

In an interview with Collider in early June 2019, Gaiman discussed the importance of timing when adapting a work like Sandman:

"There are definitely things that get made when the time is right. I don't think it would have been possible to make a good Sandman, when they started trying to make a good Sandman. [Ted] Elliott and [Terry] Rossio wrote their first Sandman scripts in 1996. At the time, I was looking at it and going, 'This is impossible to make. Nobody is going to spend $100 million on an R-rated, effects-heavy, cerebral fantasy story. It can't happen.' At least not back then. But on the other hand, I've gone through 25 years of people saying, "So, Sandman is going to get made now." I've learned to go, 'Yeah, okay, I'm looking forward to it.'"

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