Joseph Gordon-Levitt Explains Why A Sandman Movie Is A Better Idea Than A TV Series

To celebrate the second season of hitRECORD on TV, Joseph Gordon-Levitt partook in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Friday. During it, he was asked about adapting Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel into a feature film, which he'll produce and probably star in.

He was asked point-blank if Sandman should be adapted into a film when its "large scope and episodic nature" are best suited for television. "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," JGL explained. "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."

Part of what makes adapting Sandman so difficult is that the comic doesn't always focus on the central character Morpheus/Dream and it has tons of side-stories throughout. Fans need to keep in mind, there really is no way to adapt it without having to leave things out. "Yeah, there's tons of little brilliant moments throughout the series, and we certainly can't incorporate all of them," Gordon-Levitt said when asked about incorporating certain story elements from Sandman Volume 5, A Game of You. "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."

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