The Joker was about to appear in Netflix’s “The Sandman” story

Fans of the original graphic novel of “The Sandman” know that the Morpheus story is set in the DC comics and was later published by Vertigo, but that doesn’t mean that, in some story arcs, some characters from this universe have appeared. in the plot. For the Netflix series, Neil Gaiman wanted the Joker to participate, but the idea was finally squashed.

During an interview for the magazine rolling stone, Neil Gaiman explained that he wanted to use the Joker ‘The man of sand’, like an unexpected cameo. But both this, and other references to the DC Comics universe, have been removed due to issues with the rights of the characters, since they belong to Warner Bros.

As the creative explains, the Joker would appear in a scene of ‘The man of sand’, during the story of John Dee, originally interned at Arkham Asylum, the popular psychiatric center where the Joker is a regular patient, and which Batman has also visited on several occasions.

John Dee, Doctor Destiny, escapes Arkham and should meet the Joker. ”

The creator of the Netflix series explains that “I had written the whole villain sequence and suddenly got a phone call saying, ‘Oh no, the Joker just disappeared under the waters of the Gotham River. He is believed to be dead.’ And I said, ‘Well, he’s not dead. He’s the Joker.

Warner calls for the Joker to be removed from “The Sandman” story

After the call, Gaiman commented on it the executives told him “technically” the Joker “is now dead”He adds.” So you have to do it somebody else. “And I said, ‘But it’s the Joker. It was a good … OK’. I leave him, now it’s Scarecrow. But it was that kind of thing. I just said : ‘I can’t be bothered.’ I can’t really worry about having to change things up and rewrite them because someone just dumped the Joker into a river. “

In the arc of John Dee in the original novel of ‘The Sandman’, the Scarecrow has some relationship with the character of John Dee, however for the Netflix series they would have chosen the Joker, although it is not known if it would have been the Joker, Joaquin Phoenix. or Jared Leto, or someone completely new, but in the end the cameo was cut.

“They cut ties with every priceless DC universe to have more narrative freedom,” Gaiman said in an interview. In this way, it was as if other cameos in the original novel, such as the one in The Justice League, or the original John Constantine, had been canceled due to rights issues with Warner Bros, although they are also involved in the production.