'Sandman' Creator Neil Gaiman Wants to Cast Tom Hiddleston

Warner Bros. has been trying to adapt Neil Gaiman’s classic ‘Sandman’ graphic novels into a film for years with little success, but now that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to direct and David S. Goyer is involved, the project is picking up steam. Gaiman himself has been working closely with Gordon-Levitt, Goyer, and writer Jack Thorne on finally bringing ‘Sandman’ to the big screen, and he thinks Tom Hiddleston would be the perfect leading man.

The leading role in ‘Sandman’ is Dream, aka Morpheus, an abstract character who lords over the realm of dreams. In an interview with Radio Times, Gaiman revealed that he would have preferred that Benedict Cumberbatch play the role, but now that the ‘Sherlock’ star is busy with ‘Doctor Strange,’ that isn’t very likely:

It’s a funny thing with Morpheus. Again, it’s that thing where you look around and think, ‘Yes this person would be a fantastic person’, and then time passes. There was a time Johnny Depp would’ve been a great Morpheus, but now he’s too old and it’s fine. I think the first time I saw Benedict was as Sherlock Holmes, I thought, ‘wow, that’s incredibly Morpheus’. And fans probably thought the same because they immediately started doing fan-art, meshing the two of them up.

Gaiman went on to reveal his new choice for the leading role:

Then again, Tom Hiddleston is still out there! And the truth is, as far as I’m concerned, anybody who sounds English with great cheekbones can probably pull it off.

And actually, Tom Hiddleston would be perfect for the part when you think about it, especially after his languid and brooding turn earlier this year in ‘Only Lovers Left Alive.’ Hiddleston is also fairly preoccupied: he recently wrapped filming on ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and the Hank Williams biopic ‘I Saw the Light,’ and he’s preparing to reprise his role as Loki in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and is slated to star in ‘Kong: Skull Island’—both of which hit theaters in 2017.

Over the years, Gaiman hasn’t been pleased with various scripts for the ‘Sandman’ adaptation, but now he appears to be quite pleased with director/producer Joseph-Gordon Levitt and producer David Goyer, as well as screenwriter Jack Thorne. The author went on to say that he’ll be reading a new draft of the script very soon:

So they’ve written a script. I got a phone call about two, three weeks ago from Joe and David saying, ‘Jack did a script, we read it, we want some things done to it. We want you to see it, but not this version. The next version will be in three weeks and then you’ll be the first person to see it.’ So I am now a week before seeing the script. It’s going to come in just before Christmas.

‘Sandman’ does not currently have a release date, and one was not revealed during WB’s announcement of their upcoming superhero films schedule.