Sandman Season 2: Neil Gaiman Confirms New Episodes are Safe After Latest Report
Netflix released The Sandman earlier this year and it was based on an original IP from DC Comics' Vertigo imprint. Warner Bros. had been trying to get a Sandman project off the ground for several years but creator Neil Gaiman refused to be attached until it turned into a TV series for Netflix. After a long wait Netflix revealed that they had officially green-lit a second season of the series and Gaiman recently teased the second season and a new member of The Endless appearing at Netflix's panel at CCXP Brazil. Warner Bros. TV produced the film and licensed it out to Netflix, and a new report reveals that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has a bit of a problem with the terms of their licensing deal with the streaming service. Zaslav went as far as instructing his teams to temporarily pause selling finished series to the streaming service, and fans feared that The Sandman season two could be affected. Gaiman took to Twitter to explain that season two won't be troubled by the situation after a fan asked him to shed some light.
"Sandman Season 2 has been commissioned by a Netflix and is real," Gaiman told a fan on Twitter. "Whatever behind the scenes wrangling and negotiating needed to happen to make this a reality has already occurred."
Sandman Season 2 has been commissioned by a Netflix and is real. Whatever behind the scenes wrangling and negotiating needed to happen to make this a reality has already occurred. https://t.co/F73ULZPgkk
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) December 10, 2022
The Sandman is the first project based on the character to ever make it out of the development stage. There was a film developed, with Joseph Gordon Levitt attached to star. Previously, Gaiman revealed while talking with Entertainment Weekly why he refused to come aboard previous Sandman projects.
"I had refused to get involved," Gaiman said of previous adaptations, most recently one with Joseph Gordon-Levitt attached to both direct and star in. "I'd refused to write them; I refused to be the executive producer. I wouldn't do it because I knew that if I did, I would lose the only power that I had, which was to be able to speak out against a bad Sandman movie. Fortunately, Sandman was just too expensive for anybody to justify making. And if you're trying to make a Sandman movie, the first question is, what do you throw out? Because Sandman, by the time it was finished, is 3,000 pages of comic. So what is your movie then?"
Gaiman went on to recall some of the bad adaptations that almost happened, including a version from Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary that was over as soon as he pitched it to the heads of Warner Bros. He also spoke about a version from producer Jon Peters (of Kevin Smith's Superman movie with a giant spider fame), adding: "There was a version of the script, and I'll never forget the first line: 'A-ha, foolish mortals! As if your puny weapons could hurt me, the mighty Lord of Dreams, the Sandman!' And it got worse from there."
Tom Sturridge leads the all-star cast for the series playing the titular character and Lord of Dreams. He stars alongside Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Charles Dance as Roderick Burgess, Asim Chaudhry as Abel, Sanjeev Bhaskar as Cain, Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine, Joely Richardson as Ethel Cripps, David Thewlis as John Dee, Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian, Stephen Fry as Gilbert, Patton Oswalt as the voice of Dream's raven Matthew, .and as Dream's siblings, Mason Alexander Park as Desire and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death.
The first season of the series is now streaming on Netflix.
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