Neil Gaiman's Big Vision For The Sandman TV Series Should Make Fans Ecstatic
Fans of Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" comics have been treated to a brilliantly faithful live-action adaptation from Netflix, which follows Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) as he tries to restore the metaphysical realm of dreams back to its former glory after being imprisoned for a century. It's a relief for many comic readers since the reports about various failed bids to bring "The Sandman" onto the screen are infamous because of how they apparently mishandled the property. Thankfully, Netflix treats it with reverence while trimming the fat to make it more suitable for TV.
It's clearly been a hit with audiences since it has an 86% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes — with the New Statesman's Marc Burrows writing, "The spirit is the same: an elegant representation that serves and enhances the storytelling." Although the streaming service hasn't officially renewed the show for Season 2, fans were treated to a bonus eleventh episode that adapts "Dream of a Thousand Cats" in a striking animated style, while "Calliope" gets the live-action treatment.
Thankfully, showrunner Allan Heinberg has given fans hope by revealing the writers have already started preparing the second batch of scripts so they can hit the ground running if Netflix greenlights Season 2. Gaiman has had a hand in developing the series for TV, and he recently revealed his impressively big vision for the show.
Neil Gaiman is approaching it with the same scale as the comics
Comics readers will already know that "The Sandman" world is very expansive, and there's so much potential for it to grow even further. The original series lasted for 75 issues and ended in 1996 (via Fandom), and it went in some genuinely wild directions before its end. When speaking to ComicBook.com, Neil Gaiman revealed that he's looking at the show with the same big vision he had with the comics.
He explained, "I tend to look at this and go, 'We have a long road to travel, with a lot of places that we have to stop on the way.' How can we get as much of The 75 issues of Sandman, of Dream Hunters, of Endless Nights, and then of Sandman: Overture?" The critically acclaimed author went on to say that they're writing it as if they're going to get that far into the mythology. "Everything that we've done, we've done knowing that, in many ways, the odds are against us getting to finish the story, but also knowing that if we do not plan to get to the end of the story, then we will have things missing when we need to get there."
But this isn't anything new to Gaiman; he didn't expect DC to keep the story going when he initially wrote it. He added, "When I was writing 'Sandman,' I never knew I was going to be able to get to the end of the story, if DC were going to cancel it, if something would happen. So it does feel kind of familiar."
So, "Sandman" fans need to keep watching the show if they want to dive further into the Dreaming and beyond.