Geeks everywhere have been giddy at the prospect of a big screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s epic comic series Sandman. Gaiman’s comic was a success with fans and critics alike when it came out in 1989, and we’ve all seen the silver screen potential that the 75 issue run possesses. If you are hypothesizing about who would be the perfect director to Gaiman’s vision of the world of dreams you’re not the only one. In an interview with Jam!Showbiz Gaiman had some things to say about who he thought would have best chance of successfully pulling off the movie.

I think it’s probably some kid, who right now is around 26-years-old. He may or may not have directed his first movie, but he loves ‘Sandman’ and he has the same amount of dedication to the material that (director) Peter Jackson had to ‘Lord of the Rings‘ and Sam Rami had to ‘Spider-Man.’ It’s somebody who knows that there’s this thing they love and they have a responsibility to the world get it right and not f— it up. But they’re also not scared of changing the things about it that are not cinematic into things that are cinema. Otherwise you end up with something like the ‘Sin City‘ movie, where you’d rather read the comic. I remember watching that and thinking, ‘I think I prefer these characters better when Frank (Miller) draws them.’

While I’m not sure that I agree entirely with Neil about this, it’s hard to completely disagree with his logic. What he’s really saying is that in order to do truly capture the essence of the comic you’d need somebody in the same spot he was in when he wrote Sandman. I would bet that there are guys out there who have already established themselves in the film industry who are every bit as dedicated to Sandman and it’s source material as a newcomer would be but I also see where he’s coming from with the comment, I also think his thoughts on Sin City and why it didn’t quite work properly in the theaters were pretty bang on too.

When asked if there was ever a chance that we’d see Gaiman revisit the Sandman universe in comics again he had this to say.

Maybe. I wanted to do a 20th anniversary story and it broke mostly because DC Comics would have loved me to do a 20th anniversary story at the same terms that were agreed upon in 1987 when I was a 26-year-old unknown. And my thought was, ‘You know what guys, it really doesn’t work like that.’ I wasn’t going to do a deal at the same terms we had in 1987 and they were not willing to do any better than that.

I’m not exactly sure what to think about that, It sounds like there’s a better chance of seeing a movie than there is a new comic. I’d rather see a new comic personally, but I normally don’t get a vote on these things. If you’re looking for some new Neil Gaiman to read I highly recommend his 2 part Batman story with Any Kubert What Ever happened to the Caped Crusader. It’s out in hardcover next month.