The Sandman movie won’t contain any punching, if you concerned about that specific thing.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt talked to MTV News after – ugh – Spike TV’s Guy’s Choice Awards and let everyone know what’s going on with the much-anticipated and much-delayed film.
He explained why it’s so to adapt the comic.
“It’s really good, man. It’s slow but steady. It’s a really complicated adaptation because those comics, they’re brilliant. But they’re not written as a whole. It’s not like Watchmen, which is a graphic novel that has a beginning, middle, and end. Sandman was written over the course of whatever — I forget exactly, six or seven years. One at a time. One little 24-page issue at a time. And to try to take that and make it into something that’s a feature film — a movie that has a beginning, middle, and end — is complicated.”
He also talked a bit about the action in the film and how it’s unlike most everything out now.
“Big spectacular action movies are generally about crime fighters fighting crime and blowing shit up. This has nothing to do with that. And it was actually one of the things that Neil Gaiman said to me, he said ‘Don’t have him punch anybody.’ Because he never does. If you read the comics, Morpheus doesn’t punch anybody. That’s not what he does.
“It’s going to be like a grand spectacular action film, but that relies on none of those same old ordinary cliches. So, that’s why it’s taking a lot time to write, but it’s going to be really good.”
With that description and his refusal to say which storyline he’s bringing to the screen, I’m curious as to what to expect. But Gordon-Levitt is a filmmaker I trust and the involvement of Neil Gaiman in the project gives me hope that this could actually work.
It’d pretty much have to be better than the last time they tried (and failed) to put Morpheus on the big screen.
