Neil Gaiman reveals that Michael Jackson wanted to star in The Sandman

In recent years, comic book adaptations have become so popular that a new title of the genre arrives every month. But some time ago, these types of productions weren’t that common and companies were struggling to bet on them. At the time, Neil Gaiman was already looking to bring ‘The Sandman’ to the big screen and Michael Jackson wanted the lead role.

On other occasions, the creator of “The Boys”, and even Joseph Gordon-Levitt, wanted to adapt the story of Morpheus on screen, in live-action format, but this resulted in cancellations. But now surprisingly Neil Gaiman reveals details of when Michael Jackson wanted to do ‘The man of sand’.

During an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Neil Gaiman confessed that Michael Jackson wanted to play Morpheusin an old adaptation of “The Sandman”, which would be released in 1996, but ultimately the project didn’t get the green light and was kept in the archive.

The then president of Warner Bros sat me down and told me that Michael Jackson had called him the day before and asked if he could play Morpheus in The Sandman.

The British writer reveals that it was the King of Pop who mainly called Warner Bros to star in the Morpheus adaptation, and that Warner Bros had “a lot of interest in it”, as they knew the importance of Neil Gaiman’s story, and when they asked the author, he replied with an “Oh”.

‘The Sandman’, Michael Jackson’s unfulfilled dream

The King of Pop at the time was already an internationally recognized singer, and one of the best sellers of the moment, who had already participated in some films such as ‘The Wiz’, the remake of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, and the second part of ‘Men in Black’. But for Michael Jackson one of his biggest dreams was acting ‘The man of sand’.

Subsequently there were other attempts to adapt the story of The Eternals, but, unfortunately for Michael Jackson, they never succeeded, and one of them even had its protagonist, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Eventually, the singer died in 2009 and could never star in the story of “The Sandman”.

Now, the story of ‘The Sandman’ has finally been made by Netflix, and it has become one of the most viewed shows in the world, although, for now, there is uncertainty about seeing a second season of Morpheus’ life, since the company does not seem successful enough.