5. The Sandman
Neil Gaimans Sandman is a sprawling and thought-provoking fantasy epic whose central characters the endless are all supremely powerful beings that have existed since the dawn of time. Michael Bay it aint. The central character Morpheus (aka: Dream) is Lord of the Dream realm and after being imprisoned by an occultist for 70 years, he finally escapes and takes his revenge. He then sets about rebuilding his dream kingdom which has fallen into serious disrepair. He also gets embroiled in the various games played by his siblings, Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Destruction and Delirium as well as assorted other mythical characters. The Sandman is a melting pot of sci-fi, horror, fantasy and mythology, all gelled together to produce a truly unique comic book world. It would be a pretty hefty task for somebody to bring it to the big screen given its sprawling narrative and multitude of fantastical locations, but if it was pulled off well, it would truly be something special
How Close Is It To Being Made?: Put simply, at this stage, not very. Not that surprising given the audaciousness of what would be required, but its disappointing nonetheless. The idea for a movie adaption did the rounds at Warner Bros throughout the 90s, with at one stage Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dog producer Roger Avary attached, but nothing ever came of it. One script by William Farmer found its way onto the internet and was met with scorn in extremis by fans and Gaiman alike. Gaiman is quoted as saying not only the worst Sandman script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read and at Comic-Con 2007 added that I'd rather see no Sandman movie made than a bad Sandman movie. An HBO series has also been mooted, but there again, Gaiman has yet to find anyone suitable to ring his vision to the screen. On both the film and TV front, the answer would appear to be that an adaptation is possible, but certainly not on the immediate cards.
Casting: Now this is tricky, I mean, its hard to know exactly which characters would make the cut in a Sandman move and the key role of Morpheus/Dream would truly be a mammoth undertaking. Its hard to picture anybody playing such an elaborate and powerful figure but a few names which immediately sprang to mindwere Billy Crudup and after trawling the internet for inspiration, young Ben Barnes. Both are extremely talented actors in their own right but more importantly they can capture the brooding and softly spoken power which Morpheus possesses. Morpheus may be an all powerful being, but in appearance he is relatively young and this could edge it in Barnes favour given he is really, really ridiculously good looking. For the roles of some of Dreams various siblings, I thought Tilda Swinton would be the obvious choice for androgynous Desire and Mary Elisabeth Winstead would be great as the spunky and attractive younger sister Death.
Suggested by Robert Keeling