James Mangold is set to take the helm of the next Indiana Jones movie for Disney and Lucasfilm, but one project he worked on which never came to fruition was The Sandman for HBO. The filmmaker is no stranger to comic book properties after directing Logan, but Vertigo's seemingly impossible to adapt series is something he simply couldn't get off the ground.
"I pitched it to HBO years ago and they bought the pitch as a long form series, and then it got undone by a political turf war at WB. Regardless, now it’s happening and I am so happy for Neil who I think is a marvelous person as well as a supremely brilliant artist," Mangold told Discussing Film, referring to the version of The Sandman now being developed for Netflix.
"His unique vision weaves the psychological, psychedelic, romantic, sexual and fantastical in a way that is both personal and epic. Anyway, in regard to other projects of the future, I couldn’t possibly speak about conjecture because anything I say in the realm of comic books becomes instant nitro-glycerine ready to haunt me for the next 10 years on Twitter."
Mangold clearly isn't going to be baited into revealing which other comic book properties he would be interested in developing down the line, but fans of The Sandman are no doubt happy just to see it finally starting to come together. Neil Gaiman's involvement is certainly a positive, while Allan Heinberg is set to serve as showrunner and David S. Goyer is attached to executive produce.
Do you wish we'd seen Mangold's take on the classic Vertigo Comics series?
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