The Sandman has officially awakened on Netflix, and though it’s only been live for a few hours at the time of writing, there’s already talk of spinoffs. The Sandman universe is so expansive that it’s spawned numerous off-shoots in the comic book realm, so in many ways it only makes sense for the TV series to launch a whole franchise itself. And if there is a chance of that happening then creator Neil Gaiman has the perfect spinoff pitch.
And it’s no doubt one that the fans would love, too. Speaking to Collider, Gaiman — who also serves as an executive producer and co-showrunner on the series — revealed that his dream spinoff would be one starring Jenna Coleman’s gender-flipped Johanna, not John, Constantine. He said:
“I don’t want to make [it], but I just want to watch the Jenna Coleman, Joanna Constantine fighting demons, getting laid, and causing trouble in the London underworld series. I would watch that forever. I can’t imagine that not being a joy.”
If he had his way, though, Gaiman would hand solo shows to both Dream’s big sister Death and Cain and Abel, the bickering biblical brothers who dwell in the Dreaming with their gargoyle pet. The writer/producer continued:
“I’d love to see more Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). I’d love to see ways of doing the Death miniseries. But also, there are characters who I just fell in love with that I’m almost sad I didn’t write more for. I’d love to see more Cain (Sanjeev Bhaskar) and Abel (Asim Chaudhry). They’re marvelous. Asim Chaudhry’s Abel is one of the great, weird comic creations. You just want to hug him. You love him. And he’s really built on that character. What he brought to it makes him so much more than the Abel in the comics.”
Featuring prominently in episode three, Coleman’s Constantine immediately makes a big impression and, despite the superficial changes made to the character, is actually extremely accurate to the soul of the Hellblazer from the source material. It certainly would be great to have another Constantine show, after the short-lived NBC series in 2014 starring Matt Ryan. The last we heard, HBO Max was developing its own vehicle for the occult detective but, well, we all know how things are going over on Netflix’s rival streaming service.
Assuming rights issues don’t cause any problems, then, Netflix would be smart to build out The Sandman saga with a whole bunch of spinoffs so they can have a DC-adjacent universe on their hands. In the meantime, catch the 10-part first season of the epic dark fantasy series on the platform now.
