The San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) “Sandman” panel began on a high as Neil Gaiman said it feels “Really good. Really really really good” to have his characters finally brought to life on screen after all this time. “I’m a fan, I love what we’ve done” gushed the author.
We proceeded to learn more about the process of bringing everyone on board. The panel included stars Tom Sturridge (he/him), Gwendoline Christie (she/her), Vivienne Acheampong (she/her), Boyd Holbrook (he/him), Kirby Howell-Baptiste (she/her), Mason Alexander Park (they/them), Jenna Coleman (she/her), Vanesu Samunyai (she/her), Patton Oswalt (he/him) and Creator/Executive Producer Gaiman (he/him) and Showrunner/Executive Producer Allan Heinberg (he/him).
In terms of casting Morpheus himself Gaiman said “Tom was there in the first email from Lucinda (Syson)…“ the casting director.
For the rest of the Endless siblings: “Mason tweeted me and said has Desire been cast? And who is your casting director?”
“We believed people would fall in love with Death on the screen the same way they had in the comics so we cast Kirby.”
Quoth regarding the raven Matthew: “Patton was the first to be cast, he was cast before Alan was onboard, Patton was cast before Patton was told he was cast.”
While there are many characters in the show they actually have limited crossover. It’s Dream who gets to Of working with the entire cast “what’s exquisite about our show is each episode is a different film within this cohesive world”
One of the more noticeable changes is Lucifer themselves. When asked about the differences Gaiman noted:
“It’s a little bit of an update but if you go back to the first ever appearance of Lucifer in the comment I remember finding some photographs of young David Bowie as a folk singer and sending them… I said this is the look we’re going for, it’s a junkie angel. Gwendolyn brings the junkie angel in spades.”
A clip from episode 3 was shown, dream a little dream of me, (which readers will know features John Constantine). But the clip included Joanna Constantine at a wedding that has less than a fairytale ending.
When asked about if this was a dream role for him, Oswalt said “Sandman was one of those things I was into right from issue one… he’s new to this world…” but it was sometimes hard for him to act surprised as Oswalt is so familiar with the source material.
Visually, the changing styles of art in the comic will be reflected in the series.
Gaiman also revealed that when “Sandman” began people kept asking if Dave McKean was going to do anything but had retired, but has returned for end title credits by the artist. Each episode will have distinct a distinct sequence by McKean.
Finally, the world premiere of the trailer for “The Sandman.” It hits Netflix on August 5th, 2022.
