Heat Vision reports that Neil Gaiman’s epic comic series The Sandman is being developed as a TV series, with Warner Bros. currently trying to work out the rights with DC and talking to various writer-producers. So far Supernatural creator Eric Kripke is said to be their top choice—and while that’s an interesting pairing, here we pause to stand in our gallery, holding the sigil of Let’s Not Get Ahead Of Ourselves, because we’ve been down this road before. Many, many people have tried to adapt Sandman since the late ’90s, beginning with Roger Avary who, flush with the success of Pulp Fiction, oversaw the first of many ambitious drafts that would spend years “in development” then find themselves subsequently scrapped. In fact, so many have failed that Gaiman himself even became discouraged by the idea, most recently choosing to work on a film adaptation of spin-off series Death: The High Cost Of Living instead.
Although Gaiman is not yet officially involved in this latest development, Heat Vision states the obvious in saying that getting him on board will “prove key for the project to go forward.” Promisingly, the author did acknowledge back in May that “the most logical [version] would be as an HBO-style series,” though at the time, he was talking about doing it with Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, who’s currently busy with X-Men: First Class. And up until a few months ago, HBO had been in talks with DC and director James Mangold (Knight And Day) about taking a run at it, but they apparently couldn’t make that work either.
There’s no word yet on whether this prospective Kripke-led series would still find a home at HBO or end up somewhere slightly less accommodating financially (and more family-friendly), like Kripke’s current network The CW—and we’re guessing that decision could potentially prove to be a deciding factor as well. In the meantime, if for some reason you still haven’t read Sandman, check out our Neil Gaiman Primer, then go and get caught up before some TV show gets a chance to sully it.