Netflix finally unveils The Sandman‘s teaser and premiere date
The fantasy drama starring Tom Sturridge will make its debut in August
TV News The Sandman
Get ready, hellraisers, because we are finally getting a glimpse at Netflix’s highly anticipated fantasy drama The Sandman. As part of its busy Geeked Week, the streaming platform released a brief teaser and announced the show’s premiere date. It is developed by Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer, and Allan Heinberg (who is also the series showrunner) and is based on Gaiman’s 1989-1996 comic books of the same name.
The show follows the King of Dreams a.k.a. Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), who is the ruler of Dreaming and one of the seven Endless—the others are Death, Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction, in case you were wondering. In 1916, Morpheus is captured during an occult ritual and held captive for 105 years. Once he escapes, he sets out to restore order to his kingdom.
As seen in the quick teaser, he returns to a now-crumbling and destitute palace and can barely recognize his own home. He gets some assistance from his librarian, Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong). It also looks like none of his siblings appear happy that Morpheus is free once more. Meanwhile, Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) is warned of his return, but she still believes the Endless is just a fairytale. Yes, in case the last name didn’t give it away already, Johanna is an ancestor of John Constantine and is an occult detective herself.
The Sandman is described as a blend of contemporary fiction, historical drama, and dark fantasy. It also features a new iteration of Lucifer—no, not the Tom Ellis one as Gwendoline Christie takes over the role here. (although Lucifer is streaming on Netflix as well and is extremely fun). The stacked cast also includes David Thewlis, Charles Dance, Boyd Holbrook, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Mason Alexander, Asim Chaudhry, Donna Preston, Stephen Fry, Patton Oswalt, Joely Richards, and Kyo Ra.
The Sandman’s first season consists of 11 episodes. It will premiere on Netflix on August 5.
82 Comments
Sending all the “Please don’t suck” prayers I can to this production
Netflix shows have two options:A: it sucks and gets five seasonsB: it’s great and gets cancelled
Netflix isnt fucking around anymore like they used to, if it sucks (or they think it sucks)-itll get a season or 2, max.
So you are saying they either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain?
C: Netflix goes bankrupt and goes away!
Do you understand that they’re still massively profitable?
Or they scoop up an already great show.
Echoing what’s been mentioned and suggesting alternate prayer of “Please don’t suck but also please don’t be the Sandman adaptation we’ve all wanted for 30 years but get canceled after one season anyway because Netflix”.
Sadly, there probably aren’t enough prayers for that. It’s probably going to suck and will probably add all sorts of new content that no one will like. Or, the first season will be great and then each season afterwards will get slowly (or quickly) worse.
It’s being adapted by Neil Gaiman and he did well with Good Omens so… I am hopeful.
god the whiplash of netflix’s marketing/public announcements is so funny.‘we’re tightening the belt! no more big budget bullshit! also welcome to GEEKED WEEK, check out the hundreds of millions dollars we spent on sandman and resident evil! we promise we won’t cancel them after one season!’
zack synder is on-set of rebel moon with his phone off running up the netflix amex.
I mean isn’t Netflix’s entire business model just a corporate Amex card?
No more “vanity projects” like letting Martin Scorsese make one of the best movies in years. We’ve got to save money! BTW, each new episode of Stranger Things is 73 hours long.
Well, they need to get all the footage that they’re already paid for.Spending millions of dollar for a scene that go to editing room trashcan are expensive you know.
Netflix recently cancelled multiple animated series which were in full production for over a year or more, and which now will air zero episodes. I don’t think Netflix understands this “get all the footage we’ve already paid for” concept.
I wish.
“BTW, each new episode of Stranger Things is 73 hours long” unironic yes pls
“Martin Scorsese make one of the best movies in years.”
I thought the only Netflix movie he made was The Irishman. That was certainly one of the longest movies in years…
Do you think theses are being made right now, or do you maybe think they were both entirely in the can when the announcements were made?
Jesus…
Do you think production of a show happens over a matter of days
do you think that’s a clever observation? what are the chances, based on netflix’s history at this point, that they’re going to support these shows in any meaningful way? how am i supposed to get excited about new properties from netflix when they openly napalm shows that cost 1/8th of this with an established viewership? i’m not a moron i know they’ve been working on this stuff for years, but my point was the timing of announcing ‘we’re not going to overspend on expensive stuff anymore’ and then spending a week showing off all their new expensive stuff sends mixed messages and isn’t encouraging as a subscriber. they’re much more likely to cowboy bepop this stuff than they aren’t.
A character piece focusing on the Spider-Man villain Flint Marko?Sounds gritty XD
sadly nothing can reach the heights of Morbius… I mean Morpheus
Ah, I see your mistake! No it’s based on the DC character Wesley Dodds, or Garrett Sandford, or Hector Hall (or possibly Sandy Hawkins).
Dodds and Hall do appear (and Sandford is name dropped). Don’t recall any mention of Sandy.
The voice actor’s choice for Dodds in the audiobook was so weird. He had him talking like a Brooklyn cabbie, not a patrician rich guy.
God willing if this takes off they can do one-off specials (or just eps) based on some of the best parts of the Sandman series, which had very little to do with the overall plot.
The production looks good. I just don’t know if they can nail what The Sandman actually is.
Also if they make Despair a morbidly obese nude woman, I’m here for it.
Yeah, Sandman is one of those series where I read legitimately dozens of issues…and never managed to care about the main plot.Not even a little.Stalled out on the 8th trade or so, because it was clearly ramping up to an endgame I genuinely didn’t care about.
Might be due to marketing editing this trailer together, but oof, this gives off some “mid-tier BBC fantasy show” vibes.
I quite liked Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, but I think they spent a bit on that one as it was limited.
I liked it a lot as well. Cast was perfect, they didn’t change a whole lot from the source material, quite delightful. And Bertie Cavell delivered some of Strange’s best lines with style and aplomb, including my favorite about why he wouldn’t use magic to assassinate Napoleon.
I truly loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. A truly under-rated gem.
Didn’t know this got made. Where can I watch it in the US?
I believe it aired on Syfy or BBC America. It was a while ago.
i caught it on Netflix a couple years ago, might still be on there
You nailed it. I dont know why the BBC is good at making sci fi look cheap, but it’s not great. This show having a Doctor Who alum Jenna coleman (whom I love) doesn’t help with this feeling.
That’s not exactly a worst case scenario, plenty of those shows are a lot more enjoyable than a lot of Netflix originals. Bad CGI effects can be cringy, but I’d take mediocre special effects and great writing over great SFX and mediocre writing. As long as it walks the line between somewhat faithful to the source material but also willing to try new things, I’m alright.
Jenna Coleman is delivering her lines like she’s still in Doctor Who and that scene overall looks and feels like a CW teen drama. Here’s hoping it’s either an outlier — or just shot for the trailer, because why would the series itself need an “ooooo he’s comiiiing” scene?
If each story arc gets a whole season-which is a whole trade paperback collection-this show should be 9 seasons. Worried that theyre gonna have to cut a bunch of stuff out. Preacher was the same situation, it really needed 9 seasons, but it got cancelled so the whole story was squished into 4 seasons.
So when do we think Netflix will cancel it?
As soon as people threaten to cancel their subscription because they dislike the characters who are queer or genderflipped or played by an actor of a different ethnicity than how they were in the comics. Even though writer of said comics is on board with all those changes.
Yesterday
I’m just eagerly awaiting Audible’s Sandman Act 3, but I’m sure this will be fine, too.
please be good please be good please be good please be good.Also, I love the look otherwise, but I am finding myself wishing they’d gone all the way and given him the comic-style eyes. I know that probably would have been cost-prohibitive, since that’s probably not an effect that could be done practically for every single shot, but still.
I think Gaiman said they tried it, but the necessary contacts bothered Tom’s eyes too much. But, I can’t source that now, so I may have imagined it.
That sounds perfectly reasonable, so I believe it.
I would image that would be easy enough to digitally alter, but maybe that would add another half a million on to the budget.
The contacts, IIRC, were like eyeball greenscreens to add the digital effect later. Not sure how easy it would be to do it without those.
They have a cheap workers in India who could rotoscoped every eyes, tattoos and fat belly.
Kinda makes me wish they’d send the original footage of, say, Justice League to India and we could get a Bollywoodized version of it…I’d watch that. And I’m certain I’d enjoy that more than the original.
Oh, they have them here too. I worked with a guy who previously worked at a VFX house that their last project was just to remove the man boobs of a certain actor in a popular franchise. No explosions, no CGI vehicles, just man boob removal detail.
I’m gonna guess… Vin Diesel. Or maybe Nick Cage.
no comment.
Get those editors from Naked and Afraid, stat!
I don’t think you imagined it. I remember reading about the contacts but I could not remember if it was an actor-eye problem or a “this looks dumb in test” problem.
Hey! This looks really good. I hope they can find a way to incorporate the tangentially related short stories. The self contained “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney” was the finest offerings from the American Gods series. One or two stand alone episodes per season would be welcome.
Definitely. Imagine well-done adaptations of “Three Septembers and a January,” or “Ramadan,” or “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” for starters. (That said, there’s no doubt whatsoever that they’ll do “The Sound of Her Wings,” so we’ll definitely get at least the one!)
Neil said on his website that all that stuff will be included. Even that one issue of Sandman Mystery Theater will be included in the story.
Sure, but a lot of that will be with the giant “IF WE DON’T GET CANCELLED” asterisk.
For whatever reason, a theme among Netflix shows is the inability to create any kind of distinct style, which is incredibly important in both world building and making things unique and memorable.For that reason I’m concerned about how this is going to turn out, because the source material is mostly style, not so much substance to begin with.
Yeah, no one ever accused “The Sandman” of having any substance./s
underwhelming trailer
11 episodes? You don’t see that often anymore, usually it would be like 8… crossing my fingers for some stand alone installments
Four episodes of continuity, House of Secrets story, four episodes of continuity, House of Mystery story, season finale. Somebody pay me a lot of money. The rest of you can thank me.
Why does the hair gel quotient go way up when it’s a comic/superhero on TV versus a movie?
The wig factory from Arrowverse and American Hustle still had a few extra.
The longer production timeline allows more opportunities for the cast to gel together?XD XD XD
I mean i won’t watch this at all, but god im glad JGL isn’t involved in this.
I’m just glad they told us their pronouns before anything else.
Jenna Coleman playing a character with edge is going to take some getting used to (I only know her from Doctor Who) but this looks … surprisingly great?
I am going to be a basket case if this sucks, though.
“I am going to be a basket case if this sucks, though.” Seriously, be ready for that.
Given that a couple of Constantines show up in the series, could have gone with “Get ready, Hellblazers!” *rimshot*
Is Johanna an ancestor or descendant or relative of John Constantine? Because those words all mean different things, and you seem to have picked the one that implies that John Constantine will be born some time after 2021.
In the books, Johanna is an ancestor. In this, though, it looks like they’re using her in lieu of John (as HBO is apparently prepping a Hellblazer series), which is fine by me. If it’s true to the plot of the source material she should only show up in one episode this season anyway.
She’s apparently going to be appearing both in the present day and in her own original time, suggesting that she is an immortal like Hob (or just very long-lived).So “ancestor” is probably still correct in this case (if John Constantine even exists in this version of the universe).
It may be different Johanna Constantines – in the trailer, modern Johanna doesn’t believe Mad Hettie when she tells her about Dream (a scene lifted straight from the original comic).
Ah…so it isn’t CGI young Trent Reznor.
When the comics were new, fan art and frequent guest artist pinups/galleries always skewed toward making Morpheus look like whoever was “dark and edgy” at the time. Until around ‘93 or so, that meant he often looked like Robert Smith, with frizzy hair, slightly softer features, and occasionally frumpyish clothing. Then Trent Reznor became a thing, and suddenly Morpheus’ face became more angular, his hair often straightened, and his eyes/eyebrows got a little more stern.
Death will permanently be Chris Bachalo’s very Phoebe Cates version in my head.I’ve revisited the comics over the years and still enjoy them, but watching this trailer makes it feel very dated. That’s neither here nor there, just the first reaction I had. The only thing that actually feels off is the score. I don’t know if one in my mind, but that’s not it.
I hope it has a better treatment than American Gods which managed to tell 50% of the book in one season and then basically went off the rails completely before getting cancelled.
It is developed by Neil Gaiman, Yay!David S. Goyer, Oh no!and Allan HeinbergEh, fine I guess