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The Netflix adaptation of DC classic The Sandman will focus on its main character in its final season - and skip some fan-favorite storylines altogether
Bad news for fans of 'A Game of You' - it won't be adapted for the second and final season of Netflix's The Sandman
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When Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman returns this summer, it’ll be for a second season that’s also the show’s final season, as the adaptation refocuses the story entirely on its title character… and in the process, accidentally uncovers how little the iconic Sandman story was actually about its eponymous protagonist.
"There are some volumes [of the comic] where he just appears in two scenes," showrunner Allan Heinberg told Entertainment Weekly. "There's so many protagonists in Sandman, but you think of the whole thing as his story.”
The choice to move from a relatively faithful adaptation of the comic book in its first season to a drastically truncated version in its second was not, Heinberg takes pains to make clear, made in response to multiple allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against series creator Neil Gaiman. “It was a decision we made three years ago,” he explained to EW. (The series was, according to reports, simply too expensive to maintain in the long term.)
“I can't say that [the allegations] affected our process, which is scheduled years in advance. These are your delivery dates and you just keep going," he continued. "So it's been in the periphery of my experience and the background of my experience, but it hasn't been part of the world of the making of the show, if that makes sense. Every production is its own little island.”
The second season of the show will be released in two ‘volumes’ — the first six episodes on July 3, and the last five episodes on July 24 — and will include fan-favorite storylines ‘Season of Mists’ and ‘Brief Lives,’ as well as a number of the comic series’ single-issue stories. It will not, however, feature an adaptation of the ‘A Game of You’ storyline, although “there were elements” from that story necessary to the series, Heinberg revealed.
“We managed to add a great deal of material, as we did in season 1, and a lot of really fun surprises for fans of the comics who know the entire story,” the showrunner promised. Overall, he said, the series is still what he originally pitched to Netflix: “a family drama above all.”
Even if it’s a shorter family drama than many might have expected at the beginning of the journey.
The Sandman returns to Netflix July 3.
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