As The Sandman fans everywhere are waiting to see if Netflix will give the iconic comic another season of its adapted series, co-creator Neil Gaiman shared some stories with Rolling Stone about his commitment to make sure his creative vision was honored for the TV version. Famously, Gaiman had resisted several movie offers over the last three decades to do right by The Sandman–and it turns out, he once went so far as to sabotage an idea he couldn’t get onboard with.
At some point along the way, Gaiman was fielding a pitch from producer Jon Peters (Wild Wild West, A Star Is Born) and disliked the script they sent over so much that he anonymously leaked it to the press. “It was the worst script that I’ve ever read by anybody,” Gaiman told Rolling Stone (via Variety).
Detailing the “really stupid” ideas in the script Peters reportedly sent Gaiman, according to the man himself: “It had giant mechanical spiders in it… Lucifer, Morpheus and the Corinthian were identical triplets. They were a family of identical brothers, and it was all a race to see who could get the ruby, the helm, and the bag of sand before midnight on 1999, before the new millennium started, because whoever got it would be the winner. That was the plot.”
In case you weren’t clear how Gaiman felt about the script, he adds: “There was nothing in there I loved. There was nothing in there I liked.”
Gaiman says before leaking the script, someone in Peters’ office called to discuss it and asked whether he’d read it. Said Gaiman, “I haven’t read all of it, but I’ve read enough.”
After Gaiman leaked the script, the project fell away–Peters went on to produce Wild Wild West. The rest is history.
On August 19, Netflix released a two-part bonus 11th episode of The Sandman, featuring stories from “A Dream of A Thousand Cats” (animated) and “Calliope” (live action).
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