For a while, Neil Gaiman adaptations appeared to be (aside from Coraline) a hopeless endeavor, as a film based on his comic book series The Sandman spent decades in development hell. But now The Sandman is getting a series adaptation from Netflix, a second season of Good Omens and an adaptation of Anansi Boys are being made at Amazon, American Gods is wrapping up on Starz, and HBO Max has ordered a pilot based on the Dead Boy Detectives, characters Gaiman created for DC Comics. Their first appearance was in The Sandman issue #25.
If you don’t know who these characters are, they’re
Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine — who decided not to enter the afterlife in order to stay on earth and investigate crimes involving the supernatural.
While the Dead Boy Detectives are already set to be played by Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant in the upcoming third season of the HBO Max series Doom Patrol, Croft and Tennant are not believed to be attached to this pilot at the moment.
The pilot is being written by Steve Yockey, who also serves as executive producer alongside Jeremy Carver and Berlanti Productions’ Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and David Madden. Yockey and Carver previously worked together on Supernatural. Yockey currently serves as co-showrunner on The Flight Attendant, while Carver is showrunner on Doom Patrol.
Warner Bros. Television expects to start filming Dead Boy Detectives in November – but first they have to find a director.
I have never read or watched anything written by Neil Gaiman, and am truthfully only familiar with him from podcasts he recorded with Kevin Smith several years ago. He seemed like a good guy, though, so I’m glad he’s having so much success bringing his stories and characters to the screen these days. I hope the Dead Boy Detectives pilot will turn out well; the fact that we have two Supernatural veterans working on it is a good sign as far as I’m concerned.