Joseph Gordon-Levitt recently took part in a Reddit AMA to promote the second season of hitRecord on TV. Naturally, conversation shifted to his upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which he'll produce and potentially direct and star in. Drawing off of previous comments he had made about the project's "episodic" nature, he was asked whether film was the right format for a Sandman adaptation, as it appears better suited for television.
"I think a big screen adaptation is a better idea and here's why. 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. 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."
Logistically speaking, a big screen adaptation of Sandman has always been viewed as a challenge due to the wide, sprawling nature of its stories and characters. Similar to how HBO have approached George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire series, it seems likely that any big or small screen adaptation would have to cut some of the source material out. Gordon-Levitt confessed that this would probably have to be the case with his version too.
"Yeah, there's tons of little brilliant moments throughout the series, and we certainly can't incorporate all of them. 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-appropriating, re-contextualizing, combining, consolidating, and all manner of things that literalists might not like. But what we try to be completely faithful about is the overall sentiment: that Dreams and Stories and Magic are actually all the same thing, and that they're real, and that they're powerful."
Do you agree with Gordon-Levitt's feelings about a big screen adaptation, or would you rather see the project go to a cable TV outlet (such as HBO) to cater to its episodic nature? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below!