David S. Goyer is probably best known for his contributions to Wesley Snipes’ Blade and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogies, but the writer and filmmaker’s two most recent projects have seen him bringing adaptations of works previously deemed un-filmable to life.
AppleTV+’s Foundation premiered last week with Goyer serving as co-creator, executive producer and writer on several episodes, while Netflix unveiled the first footage from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman at the platform’s TUDUM event. Goyer revealed in a recent interview with Collider that the latter is set to be a faithful adaptation of the source material, even if he can’t believe he’s tackling two TV shows to have spent decades in development hell simultaneously.
“I think it’s a very truthful adaptation, and some of the individual issues that we adapted, that were perhaps the trickiest standalone issues in Gaiman’s run, have ended up being the most interesting and genre-bending episodes. And I’m really proud of those.
It’s very strange to me that after literally decades of me dreaming about working on Foundation or Sandman, that both would come my way at almost exactly the same time after decades of various attempts failing. It’s funny how that worked out. But I do think in the case of Foundation or Sandman, a streaming show was perfect. Really the only way that the magic of what Asimov and Gaiman had done could be fully realized.”
Goyer was one of the many names attached to The Sandman when it was set up as a feature film, with Warner Bros. giving the project a green light in 2013. He would’ve produced the movie alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was going to star in and possibly direct a script from future Enola Holmes scribe Jack Thorne.
Things worked out for Goyer in the end, and he’s remained heavily involved in the creative process for Netflix’s The Sandman. The teaser promised big budget fantasy on an epic scale, a genre that’s always performed well for the streamer, so now we’re just waiting on the announcement of a premiere date.