'The Sandman' Movie Will Change the Story But Not the Sentiment

Joseph Gordon-Levitt sure has a lot on his plate now that he is working on Neil Gaiman's big-screen adaptation of the beloved comic book series "The Sandman." The producer and director said that things are unfolding slowly but surely for the movie, and fans just have to be a little bit more patient waiting for it to materialize.

During an "Ask Me Anything" portion on Reddit, Gordon-Levitt revealed his thoughts about the movie, saying that a big screen adaptation is actually quite a great idea for "The Sandman." He believes that a movie will do justice better to Gaiman's creation more than a television series actually could.

"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," he said. "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."

However, they needed to make some tweaks on "The Sandman" in order for it to work on the big screen, but Gordon-Levitt promised that they will remain faithful to the overall sentiment of the series.

"There's tons of little brilliant moments throughout the series, and we certainly can't incorporate all of them," he admitted. "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-approrpiating, re-contextualizing, combining, consolidating, and all manner of things that literalists might not like."

He added that the Dreams and Stories and Magic are all actually the same thing, and they are still real and powerful.

Earlier, Gordon-Levitt said that Gaiman has requested that the lead character Morpheus not engage in any action stunts.

"It was actually one of the things that Neil Gaiman said to me, he said 'Don't have any punching.' Because he never does," he shared. "If you read the comics, Morpheus doesn't punch anybody. That's not what he does."

Gaiman reportedly hand-picked either "Sherlock" star Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston to play Morpheus, but the role has remain uncast to this day.