What are dreams made of? That’s the question lying at the center of Netflix’s The Sandman, the live-action adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s critically acclaimed and bestselling comic series that’s finally seeing the light of day after spending many a year in development hell.
It’s a good thing, too, because there was no way any studio could do this ambitious story justice with the technical means available in the late ’90s. Even when Warner Bros. decided to shift its attention to television as a possible medium for the live-action Sandman in 2010, the scale of the work and the tenacious fandom gatekeeping revolving around it simply proved too risky a venture.
Now, more than a decade later, Netflix is bringing the fantastical and mythos-filled story to life on the small screen, and under Gaiman’s direct supervision, no less.
As you can see above, the visual landscape of the adaptation is pretty decent, too, not only a testament to how far television has come, but also the hype-fueling probability that we’re finally getting the Sandman adaptation of our dreams. Now there’s a pun to make even Morpheus proud.
After being held captive by an occult ritual for 105 years, Morpheus, aka Dream (Tom Sturridge) escapes his imprisonment and comes back to find the world in shambles, and the Endless — his brothers and sisters — at odds with each other. Through trials untold, Morpheus has to embark upon a quest to bring order back to his kingdom of Dreaming, but as these stories are in favor of reminding us time and again, things won’t turn out to be as simple as that.
The first season of The Sandman is slated for an Aug. 5 premiere on Netflix.