For almost 50 years, The Lord of the Rings was a story that could never be filmed until Peter Jackson did the unthinkable and brought the entire trilogy to life in one of the most awe-inspiring epics of all time. In 1989, Neil Gaiman created a successor to Tolkien’s novel as an impossible-to-film creation in The Sandman comics, an incredible fantasy tale that transcends the boundaries of the world and explores the dream landscape and the philosophy of life and death and all that comes in between. Now Netflix is doing a Peter Jackson and bringing the impossible to life in a Sandman series that will premiere later this year. In the latest issue of Empire a new image of the lead character Dream, played in the series by Tom Sturridge.

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Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels have seen one character make it to screen previously in the form of the popular TV series Lucifer, which was very loosely based on Gaiman’s character of the same name and featured Tom Ellis in the title role. While movie versions of individual Sandman stories have over time come and gone, with people such as David S. Goyer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and James Mangold being attached to projects at one point, it is only now that the mystical and mind-bending landscapes of Gaiman’s work will be finally realized on screen.

A new exclusive image from the show, giving a first good look at Dream, aka Morpheus, and librarian Lucienne, portrayed by Viviene Acheampong, was published in Empire’s April issue, and author Neil Gaiman discussed the upcoming series, saying that audiences should prepare to be surprised by the show.

Sandman Pushes Netflix’s Ambitions to the Limit as They Expand Their Fantasy Offerings

     DC Comics

Sandman is a hugely ambitious project for Netflix, the scope of which is made clear by its ensemble cast including Sturridge, Acheampong, Game of Thrones alum Gwendoline Christie and Charles Dance as Lucifer and Roderick Burgess respectively, Asim Chaudhry and Sanjeev Bhaskar as Abel and Cain, Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine – ancestor of DC’s occult detective John Constantine, Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, with Joely Richardson, Stephen Fry and Mason Alexander Park.