Netflix's Adaptation of Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN Brings in DOCTOR WHO and BLACK MIRROR Director Toby Hayes
According to a report from The Illuminerdi, Netflix and Warner Bros. TV have hired Doctor Who and Black Mirror director Toby Hayes to helm a number of episodes of their adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.
Hayes is best known for helming multiple episodes of Doctor Who when Matt Smith was playing The Doctor. He also directed Emmy Award-winning “USS Callister” instalment of Black Mirror.
Allan Heinberg (Wonder Woman, The Catch, Grey's Anatomy) is writing the show, and he will also serve as showrunner. The Sandman comic series was originally created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, but then Gaiman came along and gave us an incredible and memorable story.
The story focuses on Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, a deity who personifies dreams. Gaiman also introduced the Endless, a group of powerful brothers and sisters named Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium (as well as Dream).
The first season of the series will consist of 10 episodes, and it is expected to adapt the first arc of the Vertigo comics series, "Preludes and Nocturnes," which finds Morpheus captured by a black magician and held prisoner for the better part of a century. When he finally escapes, he sets about recovering three very important items.
In a previous interview, Gaiman confirmed that the storyline for the show will be set in 2021, and there will be some changes from the source material. He explains:
“We’re working with Netflix, we were meant to start shooting at the end of May. Given this COVID world, everything is on pause. The Netflix version is going to begin in 2021, so Morpheus will have been kept prisoner in the Netflix version for 105 years rather than 70 years. We’ll take that one, see what that does. It’s already in the scripts, it does interesting things because… if we were creating this character now, what gender would the character be?”
Gaiman is developing the show along with David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg. They creative team is currently on the hunt to find a lead actor to play Morpheus.
