Having finally made its way to the screen, Neil Gaiman is looking back and crediting Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin for The Sandman. Gaiman's comic book series launched at DC Comics in 1989 and revolved around Morpheus, also known as Dream, one of the seven Endless beings and the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dreaming. After being captured in an occult ritual and held captive for a century, Morpheus escapes and embarks on a quest to retrieve his totems of power in order to restore his kingdom after it fell into ruins in his absence.
Gaiman spent years working to ensure any adaptation of The Sandman remained faithful to his source material, shutting down various film treatments and a series pitch from The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke. Gaiman would eventually partner with The Dark Knight's David S. Goyer and Wonder Woman's Allan Heinberg to develop a TV series at Netflix, primarily borrowing stories from the collections Preludes & Nocturnes and The Doll's House for season 1. After three years of development and filming, The Sandman premiered on Netflix this past weekend and the man behind the fantastical world is sharing his love for one major player that helped get it off the ground.
In a recent interview between the two hosted by Netflix Tudum, Neil Gaiman reflected on the creation of The Sandman with George R.R. Martin. The comic book and show creator recalled his initial failed pitch to the Game of Thrones author for a story in his Wild Cards franchise and how Martin's rejection ultimately led him on the path to creating The Sandman. See what Gaiman said below:
"I explained to Gwendoline the other day, while we were walking around the car, I said, 'Of course, George has never let me forget that I owe Sandman to him.'"
Interestingly, the critically acclaimed The Sandman series on Netflix isn't the only major project to come from the hit comic book franchise that Martin rejected. While The Sandman languished in development hell for decades, Fox successfully got an adaptation of Lucifer off the ground, which was based on Gaiman's comic version of the ruler of Hell that would make its way to Netflix after being cancelled by the network after three seasons and recently came to a close with season 6. Gaiman would bring a more comics-faithful version of the character back with Gwendoline Christie's Lucifer in The Sandman, who has similarly garnered acclaim alongside the rest of the ensemble cast.
Game of Thrones' George R.R. Martin has confirmed before that he rejected Gaiman's pitch for his Wild Cards franchise that would eventually turn into The Sandman, ultimately citing his concerns that at the time of his pitch in 1987, Gaiman had no major writing credits to his name. At the time, Gaiman had only written a biography on English new wave band Duran Duran, a book of sci-fi and fantasy quotations and Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion. Though it may have been a bump in Gaiman's career at the time having his pitch rejected by Martin, it ultimately paid off for the creator as he not only went on to create The Sandman, whose series is now streaming on Netflix, but also author a slew of fan-favorite novels, including Good Omens, Coraline and American Gods.
Source: Netflix Tudum