The Sandman creator, Neil Gaiman, admittedly sabotaged Jon Peters’ movie adaptation of the comic book series.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gaiman revealed that he leaked the Man of Steel producer’s script of Sandman to the press because it was so bad.
“It was the worst script that I’ve ever read by anybody,” he said.
He mentioned that he was contacted by someone from Peters’ office and told them about how awful the script was.
“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,” he said.
Detailing the “really stupid” script, Gaiman explained that it involved a giant mechanical spider and that Lucifer, Morpheus, and the Corinthian were a family of identical brothers and it was a race to see who could get to the ruby, the helm, and the bag of sand before midnight in 1999 before the new millennium started, because whoever got it would be the winner.
In order to kill the movie before it even progressed, Gaiman said he anonymously leaked the script to the press.
“I sent the script to Ain’t It Cool News, which back then was read by people. And I thought, I wonder what Ain’t It Cool News will think of the script that they’re going to receive anonymously and they wrote a fabulous article about how it was the worst script they’d ever been sent and suddenly the prospect of that film happening went away.” He said.
A version of the series was underway with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Morpheus, but also failed to enter production despite Gaiman’s approval. The rights were sold to Netflix after a failed attempt of being published on HBO.
The Sandman series adaptation has a total of ten episodes, though recently a surprise eleventh episode was released. The series is currently awaiting a possible second season.
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