Neil Gaiman's Sandman might be headed to TV

If you were a comic book nerd in the 90’s like me, then you are no doubt familiar with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books.  What you might not have known is that the plans for this comic to be turned into a film have been in the works since shortly after the initial success of the books. 

I have been very vocal about my belief that Hollywood’s current comic-book craze is going to come crashing to a halt soon.  There just isn’t enough quality material out there anymore, and we are already starting to see the quality of the films suffer (Jonah Hex anyone?)  However, books like Sandman represent the final frontier for comics-turned-into-films: the great comics that should NOT be made into films! 

Much like Alan Moore’s Watchmen, the medium of comics allows for complex naratives that would not lend themselves well to celluloid.  The various character arcs and storytelling devices are just too drawn out to fit into a neat 85 to 100 minutes of film, and when you try to force it to happen the story suffers.  The Sandman comics are a good example of a comic that shouldn’t be turned into a movie, but this is all a moot point as the idea of turning this into a film is dead.  Now they’re talking about turning it into a tv series.

Sandman and Death

Should they?  YES!  A Resounding YES!  In case you haven’t noticed, entertainment is shifting dramatically.  Sitcoms have given way to reality television and our biggest stars are whores from New Jersey named Snookie and the idiots they have sex with.  Executives around the industry are deciding that the average American is dumb as shit and needs to be entertained with drivel, giving them license to fire writers, actors, and anyone else who looks at entertainment as an art form.  This is happening everywhere except cable channels.  It is the HBOs, Showtimes, and FXs of the world that are beginning to embrace the opportunity to create GOOD television, and the Sandman series will fit perfectly into their line-ups. 

The Sandman comics focused on Morpheus, the Lord of Dreaming, and every issue told an exciting and different story.  Eventually the cast of characters grew to include a wide array of siblings to Morpheus, each with a different moniker that started with a ‘D’, like Destiny, Death, Destruction, etc.  It would have been nearly impossible to tell a Sandman story effectively in a single movie without slicing apart a lot of the depth that the fans enjoyed about the books, but a television series (especially one on HBO, Showtime, or some other pay-for-service channel) would allow the plot to progress at it’s own, steady pace. 

Turning Sandman into a television series is still a project in it’s infancy.  It has a lot of promise, and I hope they can make it happen.  If it is successful then maybe we’ll see a lot of other great comic-born properties make their way to our televsion sets once Hollywood has fucked them out.  One can only dream.