Even after Netflix finally renewed for more episodes, fans remained worried amid the wave of post-renewal backtracks from streamers. The Sandman creator Neil Gaiman has previously assured fans that The Sandman is safe from Warner Bros. Discovery’s chopping block, but following Sunday’s news that Netflix had axed the animated series , some viewers remain concerned. One fan took to Gaiman’s Tumblr account to ask how safe The Sandman really is at the moment. Gaiman took a wider view of the question, bringing up possibilities ranging from Netflix’s business collapsing to random and violent weasel attacks.
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“Define ‘safe,’” Gaimain replied. “Netflix could go out of business before more Sandman launches. A new, nightmarish pestilence could close the world down completely. The actors could all be eaten by weasels and the show would be shuttered. But if there’s a Netflix and nothing unforeseen and tragic happens to close the world or the show down, then there will be more Sandman.”
The weasel attack thing seems oddly random and specific. Gaiman addressed that as well.
“I honestly cannot explain why I decided to google ‘men eaten by weasels’. But as it turned out – it’s actually a thing!” he explained. “And the thing’s real name is ‘Weasels ripped my flesh’ from the cover of Man’s Life, Vol. 4, No. 5. (1956)! AND ‘Weasels ripped my flesh’ is also the seventh studio album by the Mothers of Invention, the American rock group! So. There you have it – an useless piece of information about men and weasels, and also a visual representation of what we all hope would not happen to the cast of ‘The Sandman’. (This little research made me feel a strange sense of satisfaction I never knew I needed.)”
What’s next for The Sandman?
Speaking to ComicBook.com in August, when Netflix released a bonus episode of The Sandman, Gaiman and showrunner Allan Heinberg discussed which Sandman stories they most anticipate adapting.
“‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” Gaiman said. “I really want to see that. Really want to see ‘Ramadan’ and I love the fact that one of the reasons I’m saying I want to see ‘Ramadan’ is because I don’t know how we would do it. Would we move back into animation for that? Would we create a whole new way of storytelling? How do you indicate that you’re in a story and the story world rather than in our reality? And I think I would love, and one that I’m really excited to tell doesn’t really have Dream in it all, which is a story called ‘Hob’s Leviathan,’ which is a whole gambling-on-a tall ship-out-in-the ocean story in I think about 1905, 1890’s maybe, and I would love to see that story done mostly just because I think Kingsley’s Hob is one of my favorite things on screen. It was just a glorious surprise in episode six. How funny and grounded and human he manages to be while also being awful sometimes. And I would love to see that character. Just see more of it.”
The Sandman‘s first season is streaming now on Netflix.
