Everything we know about JGL’s ‘Sandman’ movie
Joseph Gordon-Levitt can do anything, and thankfully for us he wants to do everything. The actor/writer/hitRECord mastermind/all-around great guy is turning his attention to comics, and is bringing the Neil Gaiman series, The Sandman, to life. With Gaiman’s blessing, JGL is taking the author’s characters to the big screen, and he’s got Warner Bros. and David Goyer (who wrote the upcoming Batman vs. Superman, and helped with the story for all three Christopher Nolan Batman movies) along for the ride, too. So why should you start getting really excited about this?
First off, who’s Sandman?
Know that 1950s song, “Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream?” Sandman is kind of like that. He’s often known as Morpheus, or just Dream, and he rules over the dreaming world. At the start of Gaiman’s series, Morpheus is captured, imprisoned, and when he finally gets out he has has to rebuild his kingdom. Sounds like the movie will follow that same story, though its specific details are being kept tightly under wraps.
JGL is taking his time with it
There’s no way to rush this movie, and JGL doesn’t want to rush it. “It’s a really complicated adaptation because those comics, they’re brilliant,” he told MTV news, “But they’re not written as a whole… One at a time. One little 20-page issue at a time. And to try to take that and make it into something that’s a feature film — a movie that has a beginning, middle, and end — is complicated.”
There’s a no-punching rule
It’s easy to want to go into a comic adaptation and just start blowing stuff up and fighting everyone, right? JGL knows that, and he’s trying to stay away from it. “Big spectacular action movies are generally about crime fighters fighting crime and blowing sh*t up. This has nothing to do with that,” he continued, “And it was actually one of the things that Neil Gaiman said to me, he said ‘Don’t have any punching.’ Because he never does. If you read the comics, Morpheus doesn’t punch anybody. That’s not what he does.”
Just because there won’t be punching, doesn’t mean Morpheus won’t be able to reclaim and rebuild his world.
JGL could be a quadruple-threat with Sandman
He’s currently working on a script with Goyer and Jack Thorne. He’s also producing it. JGL also might star in it, and direct it. Can he do it all? Naturally. Those last two haven’t been decided yet, so it still could change. There’s actually no cast, not even a rumored cast, for Sandman yet. But we hope he does all four Sandman things.
Sandman involves lots of Biblical characters, and Loki!
Sadly, not that Loki (even though that would be AH-MAZING). The story goes back and forth between the dreaming world, and the waking world, and uses characters like Cain, Able, and Eve. Sometimes, Morpheus goes to Asgard, and meets this Norse God named Loki. DC and its comic imprint, Vertigo, have their own version of these characters, even including Thor. Highly doubtful they’ll show up in the movie, but you never know.
Don’t expect to see it in theaters for a while
It could be a long time before we see it in theaters. JGL is still chugging away on production of it, but he does promise us that it will be a “grand spectacular action film, but [one] that relies on none of those same old ordinary cliches. So, that’s why it’s taking a long time to write. But it’s going to be really good!” We know it will be, and we can’t wait.
Image via here.
