The Sandman – Picture: Netflix
Netflix’s Geeked Week is well underway and one of the biggest announcements to come so far is more information on Netflix’s anticipated series, The Sandman which is coming to Netflix on August 5th, 2022.
For Sandman fans, it feels like an eternity has passed since Netflix announced its plans to develop Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic into a live-action show in 2019. But now, the dream is fast becoming a reality. At Geeked Week, the streamer gave us a new glimpse of the show, and it looks glorious!
While only short at 1:27, the teaser gives us a peek at some of the main characters and locations. We get the first glimpse of Mad Hettie, who’s trying to convince Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) that Dream is out there. Elsewhere, we see Dream return to his realm, The Dreaming, where he is greeted by Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong). He learns that, in his absence, his kingdom has fallen. This scene feels like it’s taken directly from the pages of the comic.
Also, we get a look at some of the Endless. There’s a very brief shot of Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who is perhaps the breakout character from the entire comic book. We only see her for about a second, but from that, we can see that her appearance is very much as expected. She’s wearing her sigil, an ankh necklace. The setting in which she appears looks to be the park where she meets Dream in The Sound of Her Wings. Next, we see Desire (Mason Alexander Park) with their yellow eyes.
A couple more non-Endless characters show up, too. There’s villain John Dee (David Thewlis), who’s ominously holding Dream’s ruby — which he eventually uses to trap a bunch of innocent people inside a diner and torture them. Then we see The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), the nightmare creature created by Dream.
The visuals in the teaser are absolutely stunning. Especially The Dreaming, which is every bit the gorgeous, idyllic castle we know and love from the comic. Well, except for when we see it destroyed when Dream returns to his realm.
While this teaser gave us some new shots of the show, it is only a date announcement teaser. Before the show premieres, we can expect a much longer trailer. This is merely the beginning.
The Sandman Release Date Poster – Picture: Netflix
New character posters!
Among the other goodies we got for The Sandman today included a few new posters including character posters for The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) and Johanna Constantine. Let’s get right into it, starting with The Corinthian:
Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian
The Corinthian is the terrifying creature of nightmare created by Dream (Tom Sturridge) to reflect the dark mirror of humanity. He serves as one of the primary villains in the saga. Perhaps the most notable characteristic of The Corinthian is his appearance; he dresses impeccably in a white suit. Most of the time, he wears shades to cover up his most terrifying feature: he has sets of teeth instead of eyeballs. The Corinthian doesn’t play much of a role in the early issues of the comic, with his main storyline coming in volume 2, “The Doll’s House,” where he goes rogue and creates a “Cereal Convention,” which is really a convention for serial killers.
And now for our first look at Johanna Constantine:
Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine in The Sandman
Comic readers will notice that the role Coleman plays is John Constantine. In the comics, Johanna is an ancestor of John. However, in the show, Johanna Constantine plays exactly the same role as John Constantine. Dream seeks out Johanna to help him in recovering one of his three missing totems of power, his pouch of sand.
Mark Hamill will voice Mervyn Pumpkinhead
We also got a major cast announcement with the news that Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Masters of the Universe) will voice Mervyn Pumpkinhead.
Mark Hamill will voice Merv Pumpkinhead in #TheSandman coming to Netflix in August 2022! pic.twitter.com/qo4c3PbziY
— What's on Netflix (@whatonnetflix) June 6, 2022
What is The Sandman about?
If you’re new here, The Sandman can be a daunting story to wrap your head around, with huge concepts, tons of characters, and numerous myths and legends weaved into the story.
To sum it up, the story follows Dream, also known as Morpheus, Kai’ckul, Sandman, and countless other names. His name and appearance change depending on who is seeing him. We watch him endure the trials and tribulations that come with being the Ruler of Dreams. Dream has made plenty of mistakes that come back to haunt him. He’s very bad at relationships, as you will soon learn. August 5 can’t come quickly enough!
You can find our full preview on Netflix’s The Sandman here.
Rating: TV-MA
