Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been pretty quiet on the Sandman front since he announced in December 2013 that he’d be working on an adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s iconic series. But thanks to some recent prodding from Moviefone, JGL relented and threw us a few scraps. Mostly about the help and insight he’s gotten from Robert Rodriguez and the guys behind Christopher Nolan’s Batman films.
According to the actor and filmmaker, the Sandman movie is still in very early stages:
Right now we’re working on a script. It’s me and [Man of Steel screenwriter David S.] Goyer and the screenwriter and Neil Gaiman, as well as the good folks at DC and Warner Bros. It’s a really cool team of people. It’s a lot of the same people who worked on the Nolan Batman movies. It’s really exciting.
There’s not a script yet; we’re still kind of working it out because it’s such a complicated adaptation because Sandman wasn’t written as novels. Sin City was written as a novel. Sandman is 75 episodic issues. There’s a reason people have been trying and failing to adapt Sandman for the past 20 years.
He wouldn’t confirm whether he’s directing, though he did mention asking his Sin City 2 director Robert Rodriguez for advice on using green screens. Looks like we’re a ways off from any casting news—though we also would not be opposed to JGL as Dream—but we appreciate the update, at any rate. Maybe some concept art next?
Considering that they’re “still in the middle of it,” according to JGL, we’re assuming that Sandman (should it happen) will inhabit a release date in 2018 or later, on Warner Bros’ film slate.
Image: DC Comics
