Neil Gaiman Purposefully Leaked ‘The Sandman’ Script to Ensure it Wouldn’t Be Filmed

the sandman script

Neil Gaiman is living the life as he’s had one successful adaptation after the other. Netflix has just recently released the live-action adaptation of The Sandman, something many believed was unadaptable. It’s been quite a success for the streamer and Gaiman has been busy promoting the release. Yet, in a recent interview, the writer revealed that he purposefully leaked the script of an earlier Hollywood adaptation to ensure that it wouldn’t be adapted. According to Gaiman, he believed “it was the worst script” he’s ever read.

It was the worst script that I’ve ever read by anybody. A guy in Jon Peters’ office phoned me up and he said, ‘So Neil, have you had a chance to read the script we sent you?’ And I said, ‘Well, yes. Yes, I did. I haven’t read all of it, but I’ve read enough.’ He says, ‘So, pretty good. Huh?’ And I said, ‘Well, no. It really isn’t.’ He said, ‘Oh, come on. There must have been stuff in there you loved.’ I said, ‘There was nothing in there I loved. There was nothing in there I liked. It was the worst script that I’ve ever read by anybody. It’s not just the worst Sandman script. That was the worst script I’ve ever been sent.

Neil Gaiman

There’s a hilarious trend in the one he mentions, as it was by infamous Wild Wild West producer Jon Peters, who almost tried to force a giant spider into an earlier draft of a Superman pitch by Kevin Smith before a mechanical spider made its debut in the Will Smith film. It seems that it had its origins in The Sandman adaptation that Gaiman sent to Ain’t It Cool New.

It had giant mechanical spiders in it… Lucifer, Morpheus and the Corinthian were identical triplets. They were a family of identical brothers, and it was all a race to see who could get the ruby, the helm and the bag of sand before midnight on 1999, before the new millennium started, because whoever got it would be the winner. That was the plot.

Neil Gaiman

It’s not every day that you see someone takes matters into their own hands to avoid an obvious trainwreck but Gaiman wasn’t going to let his franchise be dismantled this way. There’s also something hilarious about Peters‘ obsession with a giant mechanized spider being in one of his films. Luckily, his action did end up avoiding it getting made.

Source: Variety

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