It's no secret that The Sandman was one of those projects that was stuck in development hell for several decades because Neil Gaiman wasn't taking any chances with the adaptation. That means there were numerous pitches that never got made. Interestingly, there's one particular plan that Gaiman still remembers. That's because he made sure the film never happened since he claims that the script "was a mess."
Neil Gaiman recently spoke to Rolling Stone about The Sandman and the author looked back at all the failed plans for the adaptation. Interestingly, Gaiman singled out the script penned by Jon Peters, which he had previously deemed as "terrible." Now, Gaiman is sharing new details about the screenplay.
"I haven't read that whole script, [but] I've read as much of the script as I could take," Gaiman said. "And I'm not sure if it would've been an action movie or quite what it would've been. It was a mess. It never got better than a mess. It had giant mechanical spiders in it."
Giant mechanical spiders sound terrifying but wait, it gets worse.
"Lucifer, Morpheus, and the Corinthian were identical triplets," Gaiman shared. "They were a family of identical brothers, and it was all a race to see who could get the ruby, the helm, and the bag of sand before midnight in 1999, before the new millennium started, because whoever got it would be the winner. That was the plot."
We can't really blame Neil Gaiman for deciding against this but it's the manner in which he stopped the film from being made that is truly interesting. Gaiman admitted to leaking the script in an attempt to sabotage the project.
In the end, it all worked out as Gaiman is fully involved in Netflix's The Sandman series, ensuring that his vision is adapted the right way.
Related: The Sandman: Neil Gaiman Reveals Michael Jackson Wanted to Play Morpheus
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