Remember the early 90’s, before “emo” was a lifestyle and kids were just dressing up like Neil Gaiman’s Death or Dream and rock out to The Cure? Well, it looks like Warner Bros. TV is a little more nostalgic, as they’re in the planning stages of turning Gaiman’s classic fantasy comic into a new dramatic series.
It may be 15 years after the initial book stopped getting published, but the executives at WB feel that fans of a new, vampire-loving generation will take a liking to this dark and dreary world. Heat Vision spells it out.
Warner Bros. TV is in the midst of acquiring television rights from sister company DC Entertainment and in talks with several writer-producers about adapting the 1990s comic. At the top of the list is Eric Kripke, creator of the CW’s horror-tinged “Supernatural.”
“Sandman” told the tale of Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, a deity who personifies dreams. The book began in the horror realm but quickly made its mark in fantasy and mythology as Gaiman introduced the Endless, a group of powerful brothers and sisters named Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).
A movie version of “Sandman” has been in development since the mid-’90s, with an early version involving Roger Avery. The movie version cooled earlier in the decade, with the thinking moving to the best way to tackle an adaptation is the TV route. Up until a few months ago, DC was in talks with HBO and James Mangold to develop a show minus WBTV’s involvement, but that never coalesced.
Though this could be just another situation like the HBO deal or potential movie deal, we think that with Supernatural’s Eric Kripke. The only question is, how do you take a story like Sandman and bring it to basic cable without completely alienating the fans, or at the very least, going the way of Global Frequency? Time will have to tell on this one.
Siiri Cressey
September 19, 2011 at 6:05 pmI’d like it if this actually happened.