In bringing his own work to life, Neil Gaiman has revealed how The Sandman Netflix show is handling its graphic content. Gaiman, also the creator of the graphic novels, has developed and is executive producing the upcoming series with The Dark Knight trilogy vet David S. Goyer and Wonder Woman's Allan Heinberg. Development on an adaptation of The Sandman has languished for over 20 years, including multiple film iterations and TV shows before landing at Netflix with Warner Bros. Television producing.
Tom Sturridge is leading the cast of The Sandman as Morpheus, the king of dreams and one of the seven Endless beings who is captured in an occult ritual and held prisoner for over a century before escaping and discovering his kingdom of Dreaming has fallen. Morpheus must turn to his past allies in order to recover his artifacts of power to restore his kingdom, some of whom include his kind sister Kirby Howell-Baptiste's Death, Mason Alexander Park's Desire and Gwendoline Christie's Lucifer Morningstar. The ensemble cast for The Sandman also includes Vivienne Acheampong, Boyd Holbrook, Charles Dance, Donna Preston, Jenna Coleman, David Thewlis, Patton Oswalt and Mark Hamill.
With just over two weeks remaining until the series' premiere, one fan took to Twitter to ask Neil Gaiman about The Sandman Netflix show's graphic content in comparison to the audiobook they're listening to. The creator expressed his hope that no version of his work is "too graphic" and explained that most of such content takes a psychological approach to its fantastical storytelling. See what Gaiman said below:
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Originally published under the now-defunct Vertigo label, Gaiman's Sandman comics didn't hold back with much of its graphic content, delivering a number of sexually explicit and violent sequences as well as being full of R-rated profanity. With that said, Gaiman took a different approach than other popular graphic novel artists like Preacher's Garth Ennis and 100 Bullets' Brian Azzarello, often taking to explaining the horrific events of the stories in text boxes over drawing them out within the art on the pages themselves. Gaiman's promise that The Sandman Netflix show will continue to retain the psychological approach to its graphic content should be an exciting tease for fans of the comics who want to see a faithful adaptation of the source material.
Throughout its production and marketing, it's been clear one of the biggest goals of Gaiman's and his team is for a faithful adaptation with The Sandman Netflix show. Trailers for the series have highlighted a number of iconic panels being quite literally brought to life, namely Morpheus' escape from his occult prison through a portal back to the kingdom of Dreaming, leaving many hopeful that the long wait to adapt Gaiman's source material will be worth it. Only time will tell when The Sandman hits Netflix on August 5.
Source: Neil Gaiman/Twitter