Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman continues to be a monster hit for Netflix, with the faithful adaptation of the beloved 1990s fantasy/horror comic still topping the charts in many territories three weeks after release. Such success is a reminder to respect the source material when adapting a story to another medium – after all, there’s a reason why it was popular in the first place.
The Sandman isn’t simply the comic on the big screen, though. There were a number of tweaks to plot and characters throughout which required careful thought, and most of the changes are for the better. The recent bonus episode adapting A Dream of a Thousand Cats also indicates they’re prepared to take on some of The Sandman‘s more surreal stories, and the animated style shows the creative team is willing to switch up the format, with director Hisko Hulsing revealing to ComicBook the best method to adapt a story entirely about cats.
“What happened was that I read the comic, too, and I loved it. But I realized that we, I mean, it is very truthful to the story, but I only read the comic once. And then what happened was Allan Heinberg, one of the showrunners, he wrote a compressed version of the story as a script. And I use the scripts, that’s what I usually do with Undone, for instance, the series that I also direct, for the production design. I use the script and start thumbnailing it.”
There’s also an understanding that what might work in a comic book doesn’t necessarily translate to the screen.
“Also a comic book, there’s a lot of creative freedom with camera angles that will be very confusing with animation. There’s different rules for film than for comic books, but we did stay true to the comic because it’s very much the same story.”
The Sandman‘s continued success now means a second season is almost certainly a lock, though we’re hopeful for more self-contained stories like A Dream of a Thousand Cats and Calliope before we jump into the next big plot arc. The bonus episode adapts half of the collection Dream Country, so we’d be over the moon if we got the other two stories fairly soon.
There’s reason to be optimistic. Episode six teased the introduction of William Shakespeare, who plays a key role in the award-winning A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, we’re curious how they’ll tackle the fourth story Façade. This tale of a depressed immortal superheroine doesn’t feature Dream, and is closely tied to the wider DC Universe, but it’s a firm favorites that would sadden fans everywhere were it skipped over.
Fingers crossed for confirmation of more episodes soon, and that season two of The Sandman is fast-tracked through production.