It’s been just over eight months since we received any saucy details for creator Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” movie. The last time we checked in Joseph Gordon-Levitt officially signed up for the big screen adaptation. The “Sin City” star is attached to star in, direct and produce the DC comic book movie. He recently gave updates about the anticipated projects, revealing that Gaiman is involved in the development.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Speaking to Moviefone, he said:

“Right now we’re working on a script,”

“It’s me and [David S.] Goyer and the screenwriter [Jack Thorne] and Neil Gaiman, as well as the good folks at DC and Warner Bros. It’s a really cool team of people. It’s a lot of the same people who worked on the Nolan ‘Batman’ movies. It’s really exciting.”

He added:

“There’s not a script yet, we’re still kind of working it out because it’s such a complicated adaptation because ‘Sandman’ wasn’t written as novels,” before comparing it to another movie title he starred in, ” ‘Sin City’ was written as a novel. ‘Sandman’ is 75 episodic issues. There’s a reason people have been trying and failing to adapt ‘Sandman’ for the past 20 years.”

The Sandman is written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics.

The Sandman is written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics.

Gaiman’s Sandman weaves the story of a man interested in capturing the physical manifestation of Death but who instead captures the King of Dreams. A wizard attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. Fearful for his safety, the wizard kept him imprisoned in a glass bottle for decades. After his escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On the way, Morpheus encounters Lucifer and demons from Hell, the Justice League, and John Constantine.

Sandman is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed horror /fantasy comics of the second half of the century. The movie had been in development since the mid-’90s with Roger Avary attached to direct. The idea was later scraped to focus on a potential small screen release, but nothing came of it. We will finally have the opportunity to see a big screen adaptation of “Sandman” courtesy of Warner Bros. The studio is developing “a series of lower-prominence comic books” for “relatively lower budget movies”. “Suicide Squad,”. “Booster Gold,” “Deathstroke” and  “Team 7” might be heading to the silver screen as well.
“Sandman” is set to be released on December 2016, while “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” is due next month August 22.