Back in March, New Line Cinema’s highly-anticipated adaptation ofSandmansuffered a huge blow when it lostJoseph Gordon-Levitt, who had been attached to both direct and star in the movie. Today we have word that the project has now lost its screenwriter,Eric Heisserer, who came aboard in March, just one day afterJoseph Gordon-Levittleft the project. While doing press for his new movieArrival, the writer says he’s taken himself off the project, and that thisNeil Gaimancomic would be better suited as a TV show.
io9caught up withEric Heisserer, whose other writing credits include this year’s hit low-budget thrillerLights Out,Hours,The Thing,Final Destination 5andThe Nightmare on Elm Streetreboot. The writer says he just couldn’t see eye to eye with the studio about the direction aSandman movieshould take. Here’s whatEric Heissererhad to say about why he thinksSandmanshould be turned into a TV series instead of a movie.
“I had many conversations withNeil Gaimanon this, and I did a lot of work on the feature and came to the conclusion that the best version of this property exists as an HBO series or limited series, not as a feature film, not even as a trilogy. The structure of the feature film really doesn’t mesh with this. So I went back and said here’s the work that I’ve done. This isn’t where it should be. It needs to go to TV. So I talked myself out of a job!”
The writer also addressed the timing of him signing on just a day afterJoseph Gordon-Levittbacked away from the project. He confirmed thatJoseph Gordon-Levittactually left the project “seven months before I came on… So it looked like I was responsible for that leave when in fact I had nothing to do with that.“Eric Heissereralso added that both he andJoseph Gordon-Levitthad similar ideas about the direction aSandmanmovie should go in. No story details were given, so it isn’t known how closely this feature adaptation would have stuck to the iconiccomic books, butJoseph Gordon-Levitthad hinted that the story would deviate from the comics but stay true to their spirit.
As of now, New Line hasn’t announced a replacement for eitherJoseph Gordon-LevittorEric Heissereron theirSandmanadaptation. AuthorNeil Gaimanrevealed shortly afterJoseph Gordon-Levittleft the project that he still respects the actor. New Line hasn’t set a release date forSandmanat this time, so we’ll have to wait and see where this project goes from here.
