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There was a time in my life when all I wanted was a top notch film adaptation of Preludes & Nocturnes (the first 8 issues of Gaiman's Sandman) and Death: The High Cost of Living in order to die a happy man. Sadly, I think even that desire has passed and I kinda know how NZA is feeling about this upcoming AMC Preacher adaptation. If it can't be perfectly true to the source material then just fuck off, Hollywood. #GrumpyOldGeek #StayOffMyLawnYouHoodlums

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D:THCOL is such a beautiful mixed bag of quirky, somber greatness. At least that's how I remember it. It was one of those comics that stuck with me for decades. You cast the right actress as Death and get the right director and you've got, like you said NZA, a low budget film that could be a genre breaking masterpiece.

 

I dunno. Just even thinking about what coulda/shoulda been is depressing me. Seasons of Mist could be an epic, like Godfather II epic, sequel if they pulled of Preludes & Nocturnes correctly. You'd need a much bigger budget for SOM than P&N. But my guess is they're "Hollywooding" the shit out of the script and combining shit from the entire run. Did Deadpool not teach Hollywood anything? Audiences are clamoring for something unique! Gaiman's stories and tone in Sandman ride that fine line between the familiar and the unique, the known and the bizarre. Get me Alfonso Cuaron to direct a script by Gaiman and I will be happy.

Edited by Mr. Hakujin
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  • 7 months later...

Sandman writer quits, says adaptation will only work on TV

 

The movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman's comic classic Sandman has had another nightmare: its writer has dropped out. Eric Heisserer said he was leaving the project last night, telling io9 that the source material wouldn't work as a movie, and would be far better suited as a TV series.

 

Heisserer — who wrote Nightmare on Elm Street and The Thing — said that he many conversations with Gaiman about adapting his work for a movie, but that he "came to the conclusion that the best version of this property exists as an HBO series or limited series, not as a feature film, not even as a trilogy." The departure is another blow for the proposed Sandman movie, which saw its producer and head cheerleader Joseph Gordon-Levitt back out due to creative differences earlier this year.

 

feels like we're dodging more bullets here

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I just got done slapping this into the news for the week and I was curious about some of yalls opinions on this. There's been so many changes made over the course of this - is it possible this movie could just be going down like the titanic?

 

Do you think the success (potential) of American Gods could show the networks that maybe a television adaptation might be the correct course of action here?

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...Do you think the success (potential) of American Gods could show the networks that maybe a television adaptation might be the correct course of action here?

I'm not up on the American Gods TV show or how involved Gaiman is with it, but I do know success breeds influence in Hollywood. So if American Gods is a hit, then Neil himself is likely to have more sway in saying how a Sandman film or TV show might go. Personally, I think it's a no-brainer that a "better adaptation" of Gaiman's run in the comics will translate more faithfully to a TV show. However, like I've written before, there is a great movie in that source material, too. The concepts of the Endless and the Dreaming are compelling and there's a great film or series of films that could come from them in the hands of the right director and writer.
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in our post watchmen-got-done-right society (preacher started out solid too, i thought!), i'm more reluctant to say what can't be done justice on TV/film these days...but if i had to make a list of the ones i think are exceptions, this is top 3, if not # 1 itself.

 

the changing art styles in the book really worked for me. it can be wanky/pretentious at times, but there's an awful lot of morpheus' character in internal monologues, there's entire arcs/characters i just....i guess what i'm stuck on is that if you have to do this property, i can't think of a reason live action would be better than animated.

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i can't think of a reason live action would be better than animated.

 

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The Western world will not accept a non comedic, animated show aimed at adults. And they especially wouldn't invest the kind of money needed to do this right. Look at the animation in The Killing Joke, that was an adaptation of one of the most revered storylines of one of the most popular fictional characters of the 20th Century, at the height of the superhero boom in cinema and television and that's the best we could get? There's no chance of it being made as an animated show in the U.S., you'd have to go to the Japanese to pull it off.

 

I do agree though that if done right, animation would be a far better medium for this, and actually for pretty much every on screen comic adaptation.

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It's kind of a catch-22. A TV show would be better for the story but a TV show will never have the effects budget that the property needs, likewise a movie can do the effects but will have to compress the story too much. And the problem's gonna be the same for animation, good animation costs a lot of money and as ASC pointed out, studios don't want to just pour their cash into the drain.

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  • 5 months later...

Gaiman gives movie update

 

sandman.jpg

 

A film adaptation of Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg's Sandman may technically be in the works - though it lost its second screenwriter late last year - but the fan-favorite writer has another idea for how to adapt the story, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Gaiman would like to see Sandman come to TV, just like his recently adapted American Gods prose novel.

"For a long time, I've been saying with a movie, you'll have to throw so many things out," Gaiman explained. "Why not take all the things that make [it difficult to adapt], take all the bugs in Sandman, and make them features. The fact that you have 75 issues, plus a whole bunch of stories? You have 80 episodes. That's a good thing! The fact that you have adult themes and adult things? That's now a good thing. It will be very strange to take Sandman to TV, but I really do think it's the most important thing we could do. And I hope if American Gods goes big? Between that and Lucifer, that could help."

As for why the film adaptation has stalled, Gaiman shared his opinion on the project, saying "The trouble with Warners, and I don't blame them for it, is they know that Sandman is one of the jewels in their crown - and they know that with the jewels in your crown, you make movies out of them."

"And they know they have Batman. 'We know what we have in Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Sandman," he continued, "We just can't crack Sandman.' You can't crack it, because it's too big!"

A Sandman feature film has been in and out of development at Warner Bros.'s going back as far as 1996.

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  • 4 years later...
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  • 2 months later...

we finished ep 6 last night and...damn.  i was worried about this for decades, but they actually pulled it off so far

 

more accurate to the comics than id have expected - transporting johanna into john's shoes worked better than i thought as well.  preludes & nocturnes down, the last episode with big sister death & deathless hob in the pubs may have been my favorite so far. 

 

literally can't wait to see if s2 is season of mists at this point

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