The Sandman has been canceled by Netflix with the forthcoming second season. The news comes in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment reported against Neil Gaiman, who wrote the books The Sandman is based on, and is a producer on the series.
Variety reports that the second season of the series will still stream on Netflix. And according to the producers, the claim is this was always the plan, to finish up the story of the comic book series in two seasons.
“‘The Sandman’ series has always been focused exclusively on Dream’s story, and back in 2022, when we looked at the remaining Dream material from the comics, we knew we only had enough story for one more season,” showrunner Allan Heinberg said in a statement to Variety. “We are extremely grateful to Netflix for bringing the team all back together and giving us the time and resources to make a faithful adaptation in a way that we hope will surprise and delight the comics’ loyal readers as well as fans of our show.”
While that’s a nice story worthy of Morpheus himself, the Netflix series loosely adapted through issue #18 of the comic book series in Season 1, including a bonus episode released afterwards. As the original series ran 75 issues, it’s a little hard to believe that the plan was always to cover another 57 issues of the comic in one season. Not to mention the multiple spinoffs that DC Comics has published through Vertigo and other imprints.
After a podcast series by Tortoise media first brought the allegations to light, Gaiman was noticeably absent in a behind-the-scenes teaser Netflix brought out during their Geeked Week to promote the second season. A heavily researched article by New York Magazine brought even more allegations to light, hence the multiple cancellations of Gaiman’s projects in the past few weeks.
This marks the latest project impacted by Gaiman’s actions, including Good Omens, which will wrap up with a movie on Prime Video instead of a full third season, The Graveyard Book adaptation which has been canceled by Disney, and a stage musical version of Coraline. As for his comic book work, Dark Horse Comics publicly cut ties with Gaiman, and will no longer publish the final issue of an adaptation of Anansi Boys, as well as the trade collection. Marvel has told Comic Book Club they have no plans to work with Gaiman now, or in the future. DC Comics, as of this writing, has not responded to a request for comment.
As of now, Netflix is still planning to premiere The Sandman Season 2 later in 2025.
Comic Book Club Live Info:
Discover more from Comic Book Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.