The Heat Vision column over at The Hollywood Reporter reported late yesterday that Warner Bros. is in discussions with its subsidiary company, DC Entertainment to obtain television rights to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic series.
From the article:
Up until a few months ago, DC was in talks with HBO and James Mangold to develop a show minus WBTV’s involvement, but that never coalesced.
Gaiman was not officially involved with the HBO attempt, though he and Mangold held several rounds of talks surrounding characters and story. The author is not involved in the new developments, though since it is early in the process, that may change. In fact, securing Gaiman will prove key for the project to go forward.
io9 reports on the story (along with past efforts to bring the comic to the screen) and offers one simple caveat to a Sandman TV series: Not Without Neil. A sentiment that fans of the comic series would undoubtedly support. (Neil himself has not yet commented.)
Even given the expanded format of a television series, one wonders how Sandman would be handled. The level of detail in the comics is staggering and the structure of the story and art is very deliberate. (Here’s a short primer regarding that.) Duplicating that structure for the screen would be a tremendous task.
Would the entire series be covered? Or would producers pick and choose storylines to fit, say, five to seven seasons? Who would be ageless yet charismatic enough to play Morpheus? What about Death?
A TV series for Sandman, if done right, would be a defining epic for television. The Heat Vision article reports that high on the wish list of potential producers for the series is Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. Would he be able to pull it off? If not him, then who?
