2. Neil Gaimans The Sandman
In the mid-nineties the landscape of Hollywood was barren of comic book heroes in comparison to the
Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Thor, Green Lantern, The Dark Knight, Avengers laden filmscape of recent memory. In fact, long before the
X-Men would revitalize the comic book film, an adaptation of fan favorite,
The Sandman, was in the works. A movie that began promisingly with a script co-written by Ted Elliott - known to us now for films such as
Pirates of the Caribbean and
Shrek---ended largely before it could begin. The Elliott script caught the attention of Roger Avary (co-writer of
Pulp Fiction) who was interested in directing. Avary left in 1997 over creative differences - differences that some comic book fans have heard before. When asked what happened to the Sandman film, Neil Gaiman
recounts a very interesting story that betrays some of his own feelings on the matter:
. . . Hollywood executives really love the smell of their own urine and what they really like doing is urinating on things. And then going, "Hmm, now this smells really good" and being really puzzled when the rest of the world goes "No, actually it smells like pee." A gorgeous example of that, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, who wrote "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Shrek" and some lovely movies, were brought in by Jon Peters to write the first draft of the Sandman movie. He hadn't actually read any "Sandman" because he had people to do that kind of stuff for him, but he had figured out that what the movie needed to be successful was a giant mechanical spider. He wanted a giant mechanical spider because that would make any film a hit. Elliot and Rossio, who had read "Sandman," who went in with their pitch and looking forward to it and going, "But there's no room for a giant mechanical spider."
A very similar story was recounted by Kevin Smith when asked the circumstances surrounding his exit from the Jon Peters produced
Superman Lives. Still, as far as
Sandman is concerned, the project stalled after Avarys departure and still lies dormant in development hell where Neil Gaiman reportedly hopes it will stay saying I would much rather that a Sandman movie were never made, than that a bad Sandman movie was. What we, the filmgoer, got instead was the Jon Peters produced
Wild Wild West in 1999 which did, in fact, feature a giant mechanical spider.