Why Neil Gaiman Finally Allowed 'The Sandman' to be Adapted for Netflix (variety.com) 65
Netflix's "Sandman" adaptation premiered Friday. But the 10-episode season required three years of writing, filming and editing (not to mention an imaginative cast including Mark Hamill as Mervyn Pumpkinhead and Patton Oswalt as the voice of Matthew the Raven). And Variety points out this followed a full 30 years of Neil Gaiman refusing to even allow an adaptation to happen.
"Gaiman could have decided to let dreams of an adaptation of "The Sandman" die with the nightmare that was the most recent attempt: a feature film starring and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Warner Bros.' New Line, which fell apart in 2016..." So why did Gaiman try again? "In a lot of ways, it's the only question that we can ask," said Gaiman, who is executive producer and writer on the series, alongside David Goyer ("Batman Begins" and "Foundation") and showrunner Allan Heinberg ("Grey's Anatomy").... "[P]artly, it's accepting, well OK, if it's going to happen, why not make it good?
"Sandman as a graphic novel series, as comics, was me getting to say things to the world that I believed. They were things about inclusivity. They were things about humanity. There were things about shared humanity. There were things about dreams and things about death. There were words of comfort and there were words of warning. And back then when I said them, they were important and I felt that they were true and I felt it was right to say them; including, you have your story and your story is important, and including, you get a lifetime. And those are the things I wanted to say.
And I don't feel that any of those things are less important or less relevant now. And in fact, I feel in this sort of weird world in which sometimes I feel like people are fragmenting and forming into smaller and smaller groups and closing ranks and regarding anybody on the other side as the enemy, that people need to be reminded that standing next to them is somebody who contains a thousand worlds and every world is a door and through every door is somewhere that you've never dreamed of. And people are cooler under the surface than you would ever imagine. And I wanted to remind people of that.
And then the third thing, which was, having made "Good Omens," I felt like I knew how to do this.... "
Neil Gaiman answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2003 — and at time was already saying that the idea of a Sandman movie had "currently been taken out of the hands of the producers who've led it down the Road to Nowhere for the last 8 years."
"Gaiman could have decided to let dreams of an adaptation of "The Sandman" die with the nightmare that was the most recent attempt: a feature film starring and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Warner Bros.' New Line, which fell apart in 2016..." So why did Gaiman try again? "In a lot of ways, it's the only question that we can ask," said Gaiman, who is executive producer and writer on the series, alongside David Goyer ("Batman Begins" and "Foundation") and showrunner Allan Heinberg ("Grey's Anatomy").... "[P]artly, it's accepting, well OK, if it's going to happen, why not make it good?
"Sandman as a graphic novel series, as comics, was me getting to say things to the world that I believed. They were things about inclusivity. They were things about humanity. There were things about shared humanity. There were things about dreams and things about death. There were words of comfort and there were words of warning. And back then when I said them, they were important and I felt that they were true and I felt it was right to say them; including, you have your story and your story is important, and including, you get a lifetime. And those are the things I wanted to say.
And I don't feel that any of those things are less important or less relevant now. And in fact, I feel in this sort of weird world in which sometimes I feel like people are fragmenting and forming into smaller and smaller groups and closing ranks and regarding anybody on the other side as the enemy, that people need to be reminded that standing next to them is somebody who contains a thousand worlds and every world is a door and through every door is somewhere that you've never dreamed of. And people are cooler under the surface than you would ever imagine. And I wanted to remind people of that.
And then the third thing, which was, having made "Good Omens," I felt like I knew how to do this.... "
Neil Gaiman answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2003 — and at time was already saying that the idea of a Sandman movie had "currently been taken out of the hands of the producers who've led it down the Road to Nowhere for the last 8 years."
Re:Why is this on the front page? (Score:5, Insightful)
Neil Gaiman has appeared on Slashdot multiple times to answer user questions. Apparently there are (or used to be) several of his fans here.
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There's a proliferation of troll accounts lately using slight variations on common user names here. Look real hard at the name and id number before feeding them.
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I wasn't really paying attention to the original poster, nor was it relevant. People often question (sometimes, quite rightly) why a particular story is posted here.
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Er, it's entirely relevant if you are trying to help actual, normal people. But since you are a Dr. and a Lord, and such, who am I to question!
Re:Why is this on the front page? (Score:5, Insightful)
This series is arguably the best comic book series ever.
Many people said that about the Watchmen, but that series was a meta series, as in, it was a comic book about comic book tropes.
The Sandman is a comic book that tells stories about stories. It really is epic and very moving, especially when you get into the later books.
If Star Wars deserves front page reporting, then the Sandman sure the fuck does as well.
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A year ago I was at a yard sale where the person was selling a number of sci-fi/fantasy books. Included was at least one of Gaiman's (don't remember which one). I picked it up and started reading, then put it down after only the first page. I told the guy, to the effect, "I know I'm spouting heresy, but I just can't get into Gaiman."
He chuckled but didn't hold it against me. I did buy a few of his other books.
I'm sure it has to do with Gaiman's writing style and word usage which doesn't gel with me. And pr
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Re:CASH money (Score:4, Insightful)
John Carpenter is especially blunt about it;
What I do is, I sit on my couch, I extend my hand, and a check drops [into it] They remake everything these days, it doesn’t mean anything. They just remake it because they think that the audience is so stupid that they won’t go see anything original. They look down on you, don’t you see that? I just want to get the check, that’s all I give a shit about.
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Wait, what? The wanted to start a religion for tax breaks, like L. Ron Hubbard? I can't see the connection between monotheism and boxers, though.
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Not that there's a remote chance of this happening, but - if Netflix backed up the money truck to my house and dumped a huge pile of dollars in my driveway, I'd almost certainly give them the full rights to pretty much anything I've written. So I'm not going to fault Gaiman for that.
I wonder if they could turn some bash scripts into a screenplay...
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Re: CASH money (Score:3)
I I doubt they'd jump on that. Piping is deeply problematic. Its one way nature erases the existence of marginalised sexualities. That and traditional terminal colours have always subordinated the black to whiteness, amberness, and greenness.
Actually just watched the first episode at dinner. (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't read the comics and am not that familiar with him, frankly. My wife is a huge fan and thought it was good. She said Neil Gaiman was trying to get it made for 30 years, not refusing as per the summary. She also said he had hand in making this adaptation maybe "refusal" means "retain creative control".
The guy who played the Magus was in Game of Thrones. so I kept seeing him as that because I watched that entire series.
Re:Actually just watched the first episode at dinn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an extremely difficult story to tell because much of the story takes place in heaven, hell, dreams, and abstract world realms of gods like Destiny, Despair, Destruction, Desire, Death... those worlds leave a whole lot up to the imagination, which is the point of the books.
The meaning of Desire is what YOU want it to be... so how do you translate a god of Desire to screen and have it be meaningful to a large audience. I'm waithing this tonight.
The Sandman truly is epic, and I hope it succeeds.
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If anything, the most valid criticism is that films are too short to effectively develop characters in any depth. TV series don't have this constraint. Let's hope the characters (& script writing) have real depth, though I'm not holding my breath in the case of sci-fi.
Are you still talking about Sandman? I don't consider it sci-fi at all. More like dark fantasy if anything.
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There are always going to be source-material purists who rage at the tiniest deviation from the material, even if the author considers some of the original content to be a mistake or an embarrassment that they now have a chance to correct.
And we have extremist trolls that need to make as much noise as they possibly can, to create the illusion that they represent a majority opinion, crying "woke" at every little thing that might be the slightest bit accepting of anything uncommon.
So, those voices will always
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There is only one reason people might feel like they have just been spat on. If they're racists. The skin color of Death does not factor into her actions, how she's received, or anything else about her in the comics. If anything, who she is in the series makes a lot *more* sense, in the context of the story.
Gaiman did express it as not trying to fix anything that isn't broken, and that is exactly what happened. Death was not broken, and no attempt to fix her was done. The choice of actor was evidently based
Re: Actually just watched the first episode at din (Score:2)
I wish I had mod points for you. It's a sad place when skin tone is a cause for despair and feelings of hatred.
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Not just that, it might be it was changed to try and head off the racist trolls having a field day "Well of COURSE Death is black..."
The only person I could see who might have been a better fit for that role would have been Tilda Swinton. Not because I thought Gwendolyn made a bad job of it at all but because I love Tilda and she has history of playing bad angels (Dogma) and all powerful magic users (Dr Strange) incredibly well.
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Tilda is awesome in Constantine too. A highly underrated movie.
But Death is supposed to be young. That's one of the aspects that really shocked with Sandman. Before, depictions of Death were as a skeleton, a grim reaper, or an old man. Sometimes as something more abstract, but it was always somber, and with this air of unapproachability.
And along comes Gaiman, and has this young woman apparently full of lust for life as Death, turning things on their head.
Changing that would have been a major change. Pickin
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...And along comes Gaiman, and has this young woman apparently full of lust for life as Death, turning things on their head.
Well, except for Peter S. Beagle's (very early work) "Come, Lady Death".
The progressive crowd may not like it much (Score:2, Insightful)
How is Netflix going to handle the Wanda character?
https://sandman.fandom.com/wik... [fandom.com]
What the wiki entry above doesn't mention is that Wanda attempted to follow The Thessalonian, Hazel, and Foxglove into the portal opened by The Thessalonian but couldn't because she's not an actual woman. Or more to the point, The Moon (as in Drawing Down the Moon) won't accept Wanda as a woman.
Even though the work appears on its face to be progressive, it's actually quite hard on Wanda (and Hazel and Foxglove, actually).
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I really hope that the story doesn't focus on this only because it's one of the least interesting parts of the series. It's not that there's nopt a lot a lot to explore here... there is.. but there's soooo much else that is truly epic.
They really need to do a version of the 1000 and 1 Arabian Nights tale; that is one of the best if not the best by far.
This quote is for the ages.
"Are you threatening me?"
Sandman: "I do not threaten. I merely advise caution."
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The series as a whole is really good, it's just that Netflix may have stepped in an unexpected gopher hole. If they edit the story to remove that little detail then people are going to notice.
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This show is super-progressive, for specific groups. I'm not sure who, exactly, but it includes LGBTQ+ interests and I cannot imagine a storyline that alienates them completely coming to light. Netflix just doesn't want to do that.
The first episode is quite interesting and the production quality is maintained ep to ep, which is good. The over-representation of LGBTQ+ characters was rather daring at the time of the writing and it seems consciously gratuitous now. The characters aren't bad, but do seem either
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They might skip the episode though. Did you read the graphic novel back in the day?
Re:The progressive crowd may not like it much (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be like saying that a story that contained a character who's family is unaccepting of their sexual orientation. This stuff happens. It's true. But Gaiman does a great job (30 years ago) of showing that it's also true that there are people who are accepting of who the person actually is.
At least that's what I think.
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The Moon in this instance represents powers beyond human comprehension, though. It's not for mortals (at least in the context of that universe, DC in this case) to question that.
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Death in this instance represents powers beyond The Moon's comprehension, though. It's not for an astronomical body (at least in the context of that universe, Elaine Belloc's in this case) to question that.
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Are you sure about that? The Moon here is a cosmic force that has no personification (unlike Death, Dream, etc.). It just follows certain rules. The main rule in question here is: women only. No men.
Even if millions of people would insist that Wanda can be a woman, the DC universe as Gaiman portrayed it said, "nope".
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The main rule was menstruation, due to the type of magic. If you were never physically capable of it then, no, you can't be part of the group. Thessaly only got a pass because she had had the capability centuries earlier.
Why the changes though? (Score:1, Interesting)
So, I want to ask why they changed some things.
No, not the gender-and-race swaps. That's just *normal* now, isn't it? I mean, that helps remind you that this isn't the comic. NO I'm not right-wing or conservative, but I want all the franchises I grew up with to stay as they were (alright, I'm over 50, I'm not POLITICALLY conservative and never have been). Grow and extend the story, but why change it? What was the point of Jenna Coleman? Sorry, I mean, what's the point of playing a suddenly female Constantin
Re:Why the changes though? (Score:5, Interesting)
"I'm over 50" As am I. Closing in on 60 these days at 57. Each year that passes I care less and less about the adherence to any canon of anything I grew up with that shaped me and that I loved, and much that I still love. In particular I do not care at all about pointing out how "It's not like the _________ I grew up with / remember." I certainly had my stage of being that person. But I had a stage of being a misogynist as well. And I had a stage of being a Randian as well. And as a hardcore libertarian as well. I have had many stages, and it turns out, what I have found out along my own way is that each stage is just that, a stage. An era for me. And I change. The world changing around me happens, and I have the choice to rage at them or embrace them. Like everyone, of course, I do need to look at changes and ask myself questions, my own questions. Questions about humanity. And human empathy. About justice to the individual and the culture the individual comes from.
Having grown up conservative in Alabama and routed to a Baptist church every Sunday, but then embracing afternoon reruns of Star Trek and weekends of movie-going to any movie my parents would drop me off to see, as well as seeking comics and science fiction whenever possible, it is no surprised I grew up with a lot of philosophical inner conflict. I used to lament the inner conflict in myself and ask why I couldn't just make a choice and stick with it about things. Used to. Frankly, that inner conflict is who I am. I feel no need as I get older to hold on to anything that touched me deeply as a child, teenager, young adult, adult, middle-age person, etc. so tightly that it causes me to feel a need to expend energy to bring up picking the nits of any new interpretation of it. For many reasons. At every present moment I am an ever changing culmination of those things. And at every present moment I am changing from that person I was into someone new. It feels natural now to see those things, when they are revisited by me or by their creators, in the light of new interpretations. Do I ask of myself or require myself to embrace them all? Not at all. I simply tell myself "Well, this one is not for who I am now. But it may be for someone else." A current example: I watched the preview for the new Interview with a Vampire, and it is not for me, but it may be for someone else. I may give it a chance. It may surprised me.
Then again, I am always amused at adherence to canon. Especially when I think about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy going through radio, book, tv, and movie iterations and Adams himself changing major points along the way for all of them, but without the internet being available during the time he did the first three major iterations. He just got to do it without the collective voices of the public harrumphing about how he changed things.
When I look back at myself harrumphing at the Star Wars prequels and now seeing a collective group of Star Wars fans embracing those as their own Star Wars that were special to them, I feel like it was certainly an interesting stage for myself to be a canon harrumpher at that point. But not now. Enjoy your stages harrumphing. I just hope that this isn't your last stage. A long life of harrumphing at how it isn't the one you grew up on seems like a long, unhappy, frustrating life.
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> I certainly had my stage of being that person. But I had a stage of being a misogynist as well. And I had a stage of being a Randian as well. And as a hardcore libertarian as well. I have had many stages, and it turns out, what I have found out along my own way is that each stage is just that, a stage. An era for me. And I change. ... yeah... um. I was never a misogynist, or Randian or hardcore libertarian. I'm not even American.
Once I got past the teenage years, I pretty much stayed who I was. And too
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This is a really weird comment. You frame not caring about canon or consistency as something noble or as growth. That's fantastic that you no longer care about certain elements of fictional stories. And while certainly there are people who take it too far or put maybe a little more energy than the average person, it does matter to a lot of people, and that doesn't show a lack of maturity.
You honestly sound kind of apathetic or even flippant about fiction. The meme of the guy saying "don't ask questions, ju
Same guy? (Score:2)
The last link points to an interview with Neil Stephenson, not Gaiman⦠is there a connection i seem to be missing? Stephenson does not seem to be related to this story.
Surely the editor did not mix up the two writers
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Yeah it takes a lot of people to put together a multi-million dollar TV or movie production, what is your point?
If you are not going to watch it why should anyone give a shit on your imaginary opinion about it?
Hey guys I made up a story in my brain, deemed it "woke" nd now I am here to virtue signal to everyone about how cool and unwoke I am.
Re:doesnt match source material (Score:5, Funny)
I refuse to watch this. The comics I read dont match the movie. The project has been taken over by woke people. The comic was never about "inclusiveness". I would watch a tv series actually based on the original material.
Yeah, who's this "Neil Gaiman" idiot that he can say what the original comic was about.
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He's a human being who can change his mind, self-delude, all the usual stuff that humans can do.
I'm not saying he is; I read a bunch of Sandman back in the day and enjoyed it, but I never decided Gaiman was a great author. I tried one of his novels, it was a yawner and I didn't finish it. So I don't actually give two shits about the sanctity of sandman or whatever, but I do care about the idea that a human can be infallible when it comes to self-examination.
Re:doesnt match source material (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you are saying is some people online told you not to watch it because they think it's "woke" and they have an agenda to sell you and you are going to lap it up rather than make your own decision. That is way worse for he world than wokeness imo.
If you're not going to watch it why say anything at all? Why should we care what you think in this case?
How do we measure success? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm currently watching 'The Sandman' on NF having not had any engagement with the comic books. It seems good; definitely worth the time invested so far.
I'm a Gaiman fan: 'American Gods' was GREAT, and the failure to complete it very sad.
I suspect that the right answer to the 'how do we measure it' question is whether it works as a TV show, regardless of its history. American Gods did. Let's hope 'The Sandman' is similarly glorious.
Re:How do we measure success? (Score:5, Informative)
Great Omens (Score:2)
Superb!
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Success right now is if Netflix signs on fo a season 2, simple as that. They don't release ratings numbers. Critic reviews dont relly mean anything, Netflix cancel stuff all the time.
I also thought the "Dark Crystal" show they made was really quite good and starting to hit a stride but I imagine it was very expensive and thus they cancelled it unfortunately.
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I'm a Gaiman fan: 'American Gods' was GREAT, and the failure to complete it very sad.
The novel American Gods was great, the series was a mess. When it was good it was really good, but they included a lot of stuff (yes, much of it "woke") that was not in the novel, and ended up stretching it out over 3 seasons which was insane. I actually don't blame Starz for finally putting their foot down and not renewing it for a 4th season. They had 3 whole seasons to get it done and didn't.
Re:If it's woke, I will ignore it (Score:5, Insightful)
But what if the source material is woke to begin with?
I this case the original author is also involved in production?
How would you know it's woke i you don't watch it?
Re:If it's woke, I will ignore it (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly... I mean go read the imdb user reviews... I'm pretty convinced none of these people actually read the comics, they are complaining its "woke" but its probably one of the most faithful adaptations I've ever seen (to a fault even).
There are some changes, but virtually all of them are simple about avoiding the use a DC licensed character... The biggest gripe seems to be about "gender swapping" John Constantine, that isn't even what they did. Johanna Constantine WAS in the comics, they just used the same character to replace her descendent because duh, no license.
You can look at nearly every change and it is obvious why it was done, and NONE of it changes the progressive nature of the original story. These fucktards just never read it or apparently were too dumb to understand it. The comics were "woke" before woke was a word.
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the second link (Score:2)
...Is Neal Stephenson.
Do Slashdot editors even know the difference?
Who cares? (Score:1)
More kiddie porn for the kiddies.
He was just waiting for the right bitch (Score:2)
Does Neil Gaiman still think people should be patient with GRR Martin?
Being woke is Gaiman's problem (Score:2)
Look I'm a big fan of the guy. The Sandman, Stardust, Coraline and many of the other things he's created are excellent quality. But he's got a huge fucking problem: he's no longer remotely the man who did all those things.
The woke got to him in a big way, I have no way to prove it, but probably via the vehicle of his fruitcake ex-wife Amanda Palmer. I've read her book and attempted to listen to her 'music.' It's garbage. She's really insane, especially in light of her blog posts about Neil, their relat