Netflix has finally shared official casting updates for its highly anticipated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, and some of these choices are bound to stir up debate among fans of the seminal DC Vertigo series.
British actor Tom Sturridge has been rumored for the lead role of Dream for quite a while, and his involvement has now been confirmed.
Joining him will be Game of Thrones alum Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Logan actor Boyd Holbrook as sadistic escaped nightmare The Corinthian, Vivienne Acheampong (The Witches) as The Dreaming's loyal custodian Lucien Lucienne, Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) as black magician Roderick Burgess, and Asim Chaudhry (Black Mirror) and Sanjeeve Bhaskar (Yesterday) as Abel and Cain, respectively.
There are a few notable absences here (we know Death has been cast, for example), but more news is said to be on the way, so hopefully we'll find out who'll be playing the rest of The Endless soon.
"For the last 33 years, the Sandman characters have breathed and walked around and talked in my head," Gaiman said in a statement. "I'm unbelievably happy that now, finally, they get to step out of my head and into reality. I can't wait until the people out there get to see what we've been seeing as Dream and the rest of them take flesh, and the flesh belongs to some of the finest actors out there. This is astonishing, and I'm so grateful to the actors and to all of The Sandman collaborators — Netflix, Warner Bros., DC, to Allan Heinberg and David Goyer, and the legions of crafters and geniuses on the show — for making the wildest of all my dreams into reality."
The 11-episode first season of The Sandman is expected to adapt the first arc of the Vertigo comics series, "Preludes and Nocturnes," which finds Dream captured by a black magician and held prisoner for the better part of a century. When he finally escapes, he sets about recovering three very important items, encountering Lucifer, John Constantine, Doctor Destiny, Martian Manhunter and more on his travels.
Gaiman is developing the show along with David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg. No premiere date has been set.