During Geeked Week, Netflix revealed the first trailer and release date for The Sandman, the highly-anticipated live-action series adaptation of Neil Gaiman's comic book magnum opus. The series stars Tom Sturridge as Morpheus, or Dream, one of seven eternal entities who control crucial aspects of existence.
The trailer follows a comic accurate presentation of Dream’s journey. The first season of The Sandman will cover the story of The Sandman, Volume 1: Preludes & Nocturnes, a collection of comic book issues that follows Dream’s capture by a cult in the early 1900s and his subsequent release a century later. The trailer already shows us the moment where Dream is captured, and his escape from his prison many decades later.
Once Morpheus goes back to the Nightmare Realm, he finds out his absence had a huge impact on human’s ability to dream and wonder about better times. In the trailer, one of Dream’s servants, the Librarian (Vivienne Acheampong) tells Morpheus that his castle and the Nightmare Realm are not what he used to remember. The trailer shows the decay that covered the Nightmare Realm, and teases how Dream will have to recover his power and rebuild his kingdom.
The new trailer also gives us the best look yet at some central characters in the comic books. First, we get to see Dream brother, Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), walking over a grass field in a black dress. Then, there’s Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Dream’s non-binary sibling who charms men and women alike. David Thewlis is also in the new trailer as Doctor Destiny, a supervillain who uses Morpheus’s Dreamstone to bend reality to his will. Finally, the trailer ends with the ominous introduction of Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), a nightmare who escaped into Earth after Dream got trapped.
The Sandman's cast also includes Gwendoline Christie, Charles Dance, Asim Chaudhry, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Donna Preston, Jenna Coleman, Niamh Walsh, Joely Richardson, Kyo Ra, Stephen Fry, Razane Jammal, Sandra James Young, and Patton Oswalt. The Sandman is executive produced by Gaiman, Allan Heinberg, and David S. Goyer, with Heinberg also serving as the Season 1 showrunner. The first season of the show is expected to have 11 eleven episodes, so plenty of time to deal with all the fantastic events of the first arch of Gaiman’s comic book.
The Sandman comes to Netflix on August 5. Check out the new teaser trailer below: