Earlier this month Joseph Gordon-Levitt spoke about the challenges of adapting Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed comic book series The Sandman into a feature film format, which raised questions about whether its episodic nature and scope means it would be better suited to the medium of television. Well, during a Reddit AMA, Gordon-Levitt has addressed that very question, explaining why he feels it will work better as a movie rather than a TV series.
“I think a big screen adaptation is a better idea and here’s why. If you did the episodic version, I think it could very well end up as a not-as-good-version of what is already brilliant in the comics. But by reworking the material into a big movie, Gaiman’s brilliant characters and ideas get to take shape in a way they never have before. Also, I think Sandman deserves to look absolutely mind-blowingly awesome, just on a visual level, and as cinematic as some TV shows are becoming these days, they still can’t compete with big movies visually, just because they can’t afford to.”
Gordon-Levitt then went on to admit that a feature adaptation will require changes to the source material, stating that: “There’s tons of little brilliant moments throughout the series, and we certainly can’t incorporate all of them. We are using a whole bunch of specifics straight from the comics, but of course, we’re also having to do a certain amount of invention, and in between that, there’s tons of re-appropriating, re-contextualizing, combining, consolidating, and all manner of things that literalists might not like. But what we try to be completely faithful about is the overall sentiment: that Dreams and Stories and Magic are actually all the same thing, and that they’re real, and that they’re powerful.”
Do you agree with Joseph Gordon-Leviit? Is a movie the way to go with Sandman, or would you prefer a TV series? Let us know in the comments below…
https://youtu.be/IkCIASOuyCw?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published June 29, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
