‘The Sandman‘ is getting rave reviews on Netflix and fans are absolutely loving it. They are also questioning why there has not been any previous adaptation of the amazing comic book written by Neil Gaiman.
In an interview, the writer gave an answer to this question. He revealed his reasons behind refusing multiple offers for making an adaptation of ‘The Sandman‘.
Neil Gaiman On Refusing ‘The Sandman’ Screen Adaptations
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Neil Gaiman talked about the times refused previous adaptations of his comic series. According to him, he did it because he knew bad adaptations were always a possibility. “I had refused to get involved,” Gaiman said of previous adaptations. The most recent one was with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the director and the star.
He explained, “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 Recalled Some Bad Adaptations That Almost Happened
Neil Gaiman also revealed the times when bad adaptations of the comics almost happened. He talked about a version from ‘Pulp Fiction‘ co-writer Roger Avary which was shot down as soon as he pitched the idea to the heads of Warner Bros.
Then he spoke about a version from producer Jon Peters. He said, “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.”
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