After years of wallowing in believed-unfilmable development hell, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman appears to be creeping closer to actually hitting screens in the hands of David S. Goyer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and The Fades’ Jack Thorne. But just who should play the iconic central figure, Morpheus? According to Gaiman, Tom Hiddleston could be a good shout.
While the author – who is also a producer on the film – seriously considered Benedict “ubiquitous” Cumberbatch, the actor is a little busy conquering every genre role under the sun, including Marvel’s Doctor Strange. "It's a funny thing with Morpheus, says Gaiman. “Again, it's that thing where you look around and think, 'Yes, this person would be a fantastic person', and then time passes. There was a time Johnny Depp would've been a great Morpheus, but now he's too old and it's fine. I think the first time I saw Benedict was as Sherlock Holmes, I thought, 'Wow, that's incredibly Morpheus'. And fans probably thought the same because they immediately started doing fan-art, meshing the two of them up."
Still, there is someone who could handle the mantle while also melting the Internet should he even get near the project: "Then again, Tom Hiddleston is still out there! And the truth is, as far as I'm concerned, anybody who sounds English with great cheekbones can probably pull it off."
Casting, for now at least, seems a little way off. But Gaiman seems happy to simply be more involved this time around. "My position on it has always been, for over 25 years now, I would rather see no Sandman movie than a bad Sandman movie. A couple of times, people say, 'It's a crime there's never been a Sandman movie', and a couple of times, to be honest, I have thrown my body in front of a bus on a couple of bad ones over the years. I'm just happy that no bad Sandman movie has ever been made. But I'm really hoping that a good one will be. They're a good team. And with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in charge, his instincts are good and he loves the material. He wants it to be true to the material."
According to Gaiman, he’s set to see a new draft of the script in the next week or so, which means we still have a wait to see if this latest attempt to bring Dream, Death and the rest to screens actually works out.