James Mangold has revealed why his scrapped The Sandman TV show at HBO never happened. The task of adapting Neil Gaiman's ground-breaking comic books has proven to be a rather difficult one, and for fair reason. Gaiman's original run of The Sandman spanned 75 issues and combined elements of fantasy and horror with classic literature and mythology to tell the story of Dream aka. Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and the six other Endless beings (Death, Destiny, Desire, Despair, Delirium, and Destruction) that govern all of existence. It's a dense work, to put it mildly.
Over the years, there've been various attempts at adapting The Sandman for either television or film. That includes a TV show from Supernatural creator Eric Kripke and a feature-length movie directed by and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Dream, in addition to a HBO series pitched by Mangold (whom superhero movie fans will known for directing The Wolverine and Logan). In the case of Mangold's show, it turns out the whole thing was derailed by Warner Bros., which licensed The Sandman TV rights in 2010.
Speaking to Discussing Film, Mangold explained what happened to his pitch for a Sandman series at HBO. He went on to express his excitement about The Sandman TV show currently moving forward at Netflix and praise Gaiman's source material for its "personal and epic" vision. You can read his full quote below.
It’s no secret that I was trying to pull together a version of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. I pitched it to HBO years ago and they bought the pitch as a long form series and then it got undone by a political turf war at WB. Regardless, now it’s happening and I am so happy for Neil who I think is a marvellous person as well as a supremely brilliant artist. His unique vision weaves the psychological, psychedelic, romantic, sexual and fantastical in a way that is both personal and epic. Anyway, in regard to other projects of the future, I couldn’t possibly speak about conjecture because anything I say in the realm of comic books becomes instant nitro-glycerine ready to haunt me for the next 10 years on Twitter.
Naturally, it would've been interesting to see Mangold's take on The Sandman. While he's never helmed a full-blown fantasy like Gaiman's story before, Mangold has demonstrated a great deal of versatility with his previous directorial efforts. Whether he's tackling a murder-mystery (Identity), musician biopic (Walk the Line), or a rom-com with a magical realism twist (Kate & Leopold), the director usually finds a way to make a movie that delivers on the expectations of its genre, yet upends its tropes at the same time. It's part of the reason why comic book fans responded so well to Logan in particular - not to mention, why film buffs at large are curious to see what he does as Steven Spielberg's replacement on Indiana Jones 5. This also would've make him an intriguing pick for The Sandman, given the way the comics both draw from and subvert older storytelling traditions.
As for Netflix's The Sandman, the series is being show-run by Wonder Woman writer Allan Heinberg and features Gaiman as an executive producer. Back in April, Gaiman confirmed the show had started casting prior to the coronavirus lockdowns, and said the series' creatives are now taking the time to further refine the scripts for season 1 (with season 2 already in the early stages of development). Thanks to Netflix, The Sandman series should have the same quality of production values as Mangold's version would've had at HBO, which ought to come as good news to those concerned about how the lush visuals of Gaiman's source material will translate to the small screen. Hopefully, it'll turn out well and won't leave fans, er, dreaming about what might've been with Mangold's pitch.
The Sandman does not have a premiere date yet.
Source: Discussing Film