The Sandman Sneak Peek Video Released By Netflix

Netflix has released a behind-the-scenes look at its upcoming television adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s DC Comics series The Sandman. The video sees Gaiman himself going onto the production looking at some of the key props and sets in the show. Those include the prison where Morpheus is captured and Deram’s tools — his helm, his pouch of sand, and the Dreamstone. The video also includes commentary from Tom Sturridge, who stars as Morpheus in the series, and Gwendoline Christie, who plays Lucifer in the show. You can watch the video below, and also see the synopsis for the series from Netflix.

“A rich blend of modern myth and dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama and legend are seamlessly interwoven, The Sandman follows the people and places affected by Morpheus, the Dream King, as he mends the cosmic — and human — mistakes he’s made during his vast existence.”

In 2020, Neil Gaiman spoke to ComicBook.com and other press about how he’s approaching updating his iconic comic book series for modern television audiences. “Doing the Netflix TV series, we’re very much looking at that as going, ‘Okay, it is 2020, let’s say that I was doing Sandman starting in 2020, what would we do? How would we change things? What gender would this character be? Who would this person be? What would be happening?’” Gaiman said.

“For Netflix right now, people have tried making some movies and TV adaptations for 30 years, and actively tried making them for 25 years, and they’ve never worked,” Gaiman said. “And they never worked because of all the special effects and what would be needed to do the special effects. They never worked because you were making something that was adult. People would write Sandman movie scripts, and they go, ‘But it’s an R-rated movie, and we can’t have $100 million R-rated movies.’ So, that wouldn’t happen. You needed to get to a world in which long-form storytelling is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. And the fact that we have seventy-five issues of Sandman plus — essentially, 13 full books — worth of material, is a really good thing. It’s not a drawback. It’s on our side. And the fact that we’re in a world in which we can take things that only existed in comic book art, and that can now exist in reality.

“I get these emails of production design stuff on Netflix and Sandman that I just want to show them to everybody, and I know that I can’t. They’re incredibly confidential, but I look at them, and I glow. The other day they sent me Lucifer’s castle and the gates to Hell and all of these Hell designs, and I’m just like, ‘This is amazing. Oh my gosh.’ It’s like watching Kelly Jones’ nightmares and Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg’s nightmares just coming to life. We couldn’t have done that, I think even five years ago, definitely not 10 years ago. The technology wasn’t there. The budget wasn’t there. The audience wasn’t there. The delivery systems weren’t there. The idea of going off and doing Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll’s House as our first 10 episodes, nobody would’ve let us do that. The world wasn’t ready. So, it’s ready now. They caught up with us.”

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