Neil Gaiman Reveals New Sandman Details for Netflix, Promises the Series Will Be Scary

Production is underway on Netflix’s adaptation of the Neil Gaiman‘s classic comic series Sandman. The prolific writer has already teased some connections to DC characters that could appear in the show, and now he’s offering some hints about what storylines they’ll be adapting in the show’s first season. While speaking with Yahoo in a new interview, Gaiman also reflected on getting to see the first footage from the show, noting: “I’ve been watching dailies, but nothing produced the profound, emotional reaction on me that watching a camera test of our Morpheus in his glass prison did. I saw him and said, ‘Oh, this is Sandman.”

Gaiman confirmed that some of the stories that will be included in the first season are “24 Hours,” the story set in a diner as its clientele begin to go mad and slowly murder each other; “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” about a woman addicted to Dream’s sand pouch but which also features DC’sJohn Constantine; “A Hope in Hell,” a tale of Morpheus going down to the firey pit itself, and “Collectors,” a story set entirely at a serial killer convnetion.

“It will be scary,” Gaiman said. “But it will be lots of other things, too, because the joy of Sandman is that it’s a lot of different things in the soup, and you can taste all the flavors.”

A Sandman TV series has been a long time coming for fans of the series but for Gaiman as well, who opened up about the various pitches for an adaptation that he’s been privy to in the past, some of which made him chuckle in the interview.

“I have seen bad Sandman TV series proposals,” Gaiman saod. “Some of them are from incredibly talented people who said, ‘You can’t make this into TV!’ About 10 years ago, there was a fantastic showrunner who pitched a Sandman TV show that didn’t introduce Morpheus until the fourth episode!” Gaiman’s choice to wait paid off, as he was able to assemble a creative team — including David Goyer and Allan Heinberg — who were committed to adapting the comic book, not reinventing it. “It feels so amazingly Sandman,” Gaiman raves. “You won’t believe how Sandman it is.”

No official dates have yet been announced for the series, but a release seems likely in late 2021 or early 2022. There have been very few others details officially revealed about Sandman but casting will no doubt be revealed soon.