DC Dreams: Everything you need to know about ‘The Sandman’ TV series
Neil Gaiman’s seminal DC Comics property The Sandman continues to challenge, inspire, and touch audiences to this day. It’s even turned into its own little universe within the DC continuity with its own line of books such as The Sandman Universe Presents Hellblazer.
In the original run from 1989 to 1996, the story follows Dream of the Endless, who rules over the world of dreams. The Endless are ancient beings, anthropomorphized metaphysical concepts such as Death and Destruction. Recently freed from a long time of imprisonment, Dream sets about repairing his kingdom, and thus begins one of the most gripping and elaborate fantasy series in comic history.
Naturally, there have been plans for years to get this story made for film or TV. For a time recently, The Sandman was to be adapted by Neil Gaiman and David S. Goyer into a feature for New Line starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception). The deal fell through until Netflix came and picked up The Sandman for a TV series.
Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming The Sandman TV series.
There’s a hefty price tag.
Netflix projects tend to have some pretty sizable budgets, which is part of the reason they cycle through shows like tissue paper. This deal with Warner Bros. Television and DC Entertainment has been described as “massive”. While there wasn’t a number attached to the project, The Hollywood Reporter called it “the most expensive TV series that DC Entertainment has ever done”.
With Disney+ giving MCU TV series like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier budgets in the hundreds of millions, you have to wonder if The Sandman will match that.
Gaiman will be involved in the new The Sandman.
Gaiman may not be as involved with The Sandman as, say, Good Omens, for which he served showrunner and sole writer. He will still be pretty involved with the adaptation: Gaiman will serve as executive producer for the series alongside David S. Goyer.
If Goyer’s name sounds familiar, you’ll recognize him as the screenwriter behind Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. He also developed the now cancelled Syfy series, Krypton.
The duties of showrunner will fall to Allan Heinberg, who wrote the script to 2017’s Wonder Woman. His previous TV work includes ABC’s The Catch and Grey’s Anatomy. Gaiman, Goyer, and Heinberg will co-write The Sandman pilot.
The Sandman’s first season will have 11 episodes.
According to most outlets, the first season of the straight-to-series order for The Sandman contains eleven episodes. This is shorter than Netflix’s Daredevil or Jessica Jones, but longer than other series on the provider. It’s about the same as what Lucifer received when it was picked up for a fourth season.
The Sandman will follow the comic.
Most fans of comic book adaptations know they can be a bit all-over-the-place. Will its story come straight from the source material, or just be “inspired” by it? Will a classic story be given a new & different twist? These are all possible options when a comic book (or comic character) is given a new series.
The Sandman, according to Gaiman, will definitely be a faithful adaptation. In an AMA session on Reddit, he revealed the plans are to do “most if not all” of The Sandman’s stories in the series.
That means such stories as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Ramadan”, “The Sound of Her Wings”, and more will be adapted into the series. The Film Daily writers room will be waiting with bated breath for “Men of Good Fortune”, the story of a soldier given the gift of immortality by Dream and his brother Death.
A second season is already in development.
While there has been no official announcement by Netflix, Gaiman told the Radio Times that a second season was already in development. When Gaiman took to Twitter to answer fans questions, he confirmed that The Sandman will run for multiple seasons.
Any good showrunner has an overarching plan for a TV series. Until Netflix says one way or the other, this tidbit is just the behind-the-scenes team working together to plot out where they want their story to go.
