Neil Gaiman’s been putting out top shelf, best selling, books and comics for nearly 4o years. Now with the successful adaptation of Sandman finally launching on Netflix, he’s about to do Hollywood and it can’t come too soon. The Washington Post gave the fan fave the full feature fix. Below are some our favorite anecdotes.
“All of the things that made ‘Sandman’ wonderful were the same things that made it almost impossible to adapt for film and television for 30 years,” says David S. Goyer, a filmmaker and producer who was a co-writer on the “Dark Knight” Batman trilogy. “All of the features that we love about ‘Sandman’ — that it is, in essence, a story about stories — are the bugs that stymied Hollywood.”
— Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson (@elizdickinson) July 6, 2022
Today that is no longer the case. Quietly and steadily over the past six years, Gaiman has matched some of the most prolific creators in Hollywood. And after 32 years trapped in the purgatory of Hollywood development, a 10-episode series based on “The Sandman” will premiere on Netflix on Aug. 5. Developed by Gaiman, Goyer and writer Allan Heinberg, it represents one of the streaming service’s biggest-budget original productions. Meanwhile, Gaiman’s 2005 novel “Anansi Boys,” a modern twist on the ancient stories of the West African trickster god Anansi, is now an Amazon Studios series in postproduction, and “Good Omens” recently wrapped filming its second season. These follow on the heels of the series“American Gods,” which premiered in 2017 on Starz — earning two Emmy nominations for its first season — and aired its third season last year.
Morpheus and Orpheus. From @neilhimself ‘s SANDMAN. Pencil. This is one of my favorite pieces, based on a painting by Gustave Moreau. pic.twitter.com/cHvbq5r1Jv
In total, Gaiman has seven shows that he has developed or that are based on his writing, with more in the works. He has become the great adapter, pulling from the store of fable and myth for his books, and transmogrifying his written work into radio and stage plays, audiobooks and movies. And now television.
A few people who saw the @Netflix_Sandman helm asked if it was big enough to fit on one’s head. Oh yes. Here’s me holding it (but not wearing it). And tomorrow at 10:10am Pacific Time you will learn so much more… Follow @NetflixGeeked for all the whats and whens and whos. pic.twitter.com/HkvYyN9Ic5
Gaiman’s books “couldn’t get made in a three-network landscape,” Hamm says, owing to their complexity. As television has matured, though, so too have the opportunities to tell more-nuanced stories. Shows like “The Wire,” “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones” have seasoned audiences with their myriad storylines and morally ambiguous characters, while the maturation of streaming services has allowed more niche stories to exist. This confluence of online viewing and marketplace readiness has led to a watershed moment for the adaptation of Gaiman’s work. And the timing is ripe: In an era when public discourse so rarely reflects the complicated truth of our existence — when politics and punditry seem hellbent on reductionism and division — Neil Gaiman’s intricacies may be exactly what we need.
“Neil’s concerns are so profoundly intimate and loving, primarily, and I believe that’s why he’s so beloved and why his work continues to inspire people,” writer Allan Heinberg says.
“The Sandman” comic book series came about after Gaiman had published his first comic in 1986. Karen Berger, then an editor at DC Comics, asked him if there might be a character in DC’s catalogue that he’d want to revive. Gaiman chose Sandman — a creation that had first appeared in the 1930s in the form of millionaire Wesley Dodds, a vigilante who donned a gas mask and sedated criminals at night for the policeto find. The character of Sandman reappeared over time, including in a 1970s version where he lived in “the Dream Dome.” Gaiman carried over some general ideas from previous iterations, even as he embarked on a reinvention — abandoning Dodds and the entire superhero concept, and instead creating Morpheus, also known as Dream, a Sandman character capable of containing the vastness of human imagination.
More so than many authors, Gaiman has developed a relationship with his fans. He attended Comic-Con and sci-fi and fantasy conventions starting in the 1980s, and began blogging in 2001. He has a Twitter following of 2.9 million and a Tumblr account where he answers fans’ questions. This direct line to his readership has afforded him a “critic-proof career,” as he told the New Yorker in a 2010 profile, and it is why, even today, he doesn’t bother with a publicist.
Gaiman’s stories are populated with complex characters, in situations that avoid stark notions of right and wrong. They manage to be deeply hopeful while reminding us that life is, well, messy and oftentimes inexplicable. There is no one truth. And this is what his collective work does so well: illuminate the reality of our shared experience, while encouraging us to embrace the curious mystery that is human life.
