The film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is something that fans have been waiting on for a long time. The latest iteration of the project is set to have Joseph Gordon-Levitt star, and possibly direct, and at the recent Spike TV Guy’s Choice Awards, the actor offered an update about where Sandman is at and why it’s taking so long to develop.
It’s really good, man. It’s slow but steady. It’s a really complicated adaptation because those comics, they’re brilliant. But they’re not written as a whole. It’s not like Watchmen, which is a graphic novel that has a beginning, middle, and end. Sandman was written over the course of whatever — I forget exactly, six or seven years. One at a time. One little 24-page issue at a time. And to try to take that and make it into something that’s a feature film — a movie that has a beginning, middle, and end — is complicated.
Big spectacular action movies are generally about crime fighters fighting crime and blowing shit up. This has nothing to do with that. And it was actually one of the things that Neil Gaiman said to me, he said ‘Don’t have any punching.’ Because he never does. If you read the comics, Morpheus doesn’t punch anybody. That’s not what he does.
It’s going to be like a grand spectacular action film, but that relies on none of those same old ordinary cliches. So, that’s why it’s taking a lot time to write, but it’s going to be really good.
That should be enough to give any fans who are hesitant about the adaptation a reason to breath a small sigh of relief. It seems like Gordon-Levitt has the intent to do this right, and he’s taking every step possible to make sure that happens. Talking with Gaiman about the project, and actually taking his advice, should mean that the movie can preserve the tone of the original comics.
Gordon-Levitt declined to say which volume of the comic they’re looking at, but considering we don’t even have an expected release date for it, that information will likely come about in due time.