There have been attempts at bringing Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman to life for decades, but the celebrated comic series has proven notoriously difficult to adapt. At long last, the saga of The Sandman will be brought to life next month as a Netflix series, and we might get a little more information during the show’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
The Sandman’s Comic-Con panel started off with a little sneak peek at the series. The footage featured David Thewlis as Dr. John Dee walking into a diner and having a foreboding conversation with a waitress about “dreams coming true.” Dr. Dee says, “We won’t have to wait long.” Given that it’s taken so long to get The Sandman off the ground, fans are apprehensive about the finished product, but Neil Gaiman told the crowd at Comic-Con that he “love[s] what we’ve done — it feels really good.” Allan Heinberg, who developed the series alongside Gaiman and David S. Goyer, added, “The show has been a dream come true and the goal was to make it as faithful to the book as possible,” something Netflix and Warner Bros. have been very supportive of.
Neil Gaiman added that Tom Sturridge was one of the first people they saw for the role of Morpheus/Dream. Even after they went through thousands of auditions, Gaiman said, “It was always Tom.” The actor said that he “spent months reading and reading [the comic] until it was in his bones, in my blood.” According to Sturridge, each episode of The Sandman is like a separate movie in one cohesive world. As for Gwendoline Christie’s Lucifer, that casting was much simpler — they asked her and she said yes. “The idea of being the essence of evil was the most delightful thing,” Christie said.
Another clip was played, this time focusing on Jenna Coleman’s Johanna Constantine. The clip comes from the third episode and finds Constantine posing as a Vicar about to marry a couple, but in reality, the groom is revealed to be a demon and she sets about performing an exorcism and kicking some demon ass. Coleman said that her character will be helping Morpheus on his journey. Neil Gaiman also revealed that Dave McKean, who illustrated those fantastic covers for the original comic, has designed individual animated closing credits for all of the episodes. Last but not least was the brand-new trailer for The Sandman, which you can check out at the top of this article!
The official synopsis for The Sandman:
There is another world that waits for all of us when we close our eyes and sleep — a place called the Dreaming, where The Sandman, Master of Dreams (Tom Sturridge), gives shape to all of our deepest fears and fantasies. But when Dream is unexpectedly captured and held prisoner for a century, his absence sets off a series of events that will change both the dreaming and waking worlds forever. To restore order, Dream must journey across different worlds and timelines to mend the mistakes he’s made during his vast existence, revisiting old friends and foes, and meeting new entities — both cosmic and human — along the way.
Tom Sturridge stars in The Sandman as Morpheus/Dream, alongside Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar, Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian, Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine, Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Mason Alexander Park as Desire, Donna Preston as Despair, David Thewlis as Dr. John Dee, and more. The series will debut on Netflix on August 5th.