Writer of SANDMAN Film Exits, Thinks It Needs to Be a Television Series
Eric Heisserer has officially exited the film based on Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Heisserer told io9 it's because he doesn't think the story can be told in the film...
"I had many conversations with Neil [Gaiman] on this, and I did a lot of work on the feature and 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 structure of the feature film really doesn’t mesh with this. So I went back and said here’s the work that I’ve done. This isn’t where it should be. It needs to go to TV. So I talked myself out of a job!"
Heisserer also clarified news of Joseph Gordon-Levitt publicly departing the project the day after he joined the film in March, saying he had already "quietly" exited the film nearly seven months prior. While Gordon-Levitt has never publicly stated anything about the state of the film, Heisserer says that he knows Gordon-Levitt felt the same way about the film as he did.
I'm going to wager that many, if not all of us reading this feel the same way. With television the way it is now, there's no sense in blowing a Hollywood budget to tell 1/3rd of the story. No one will be happy with that product. Develop it for Netflix or HBO and let it have the telling it deserves! I'm sure whatever money is lost from box office success will be made up over and over in merchandising, TV rights, and telling the story RIGHT.
