The Sandman creators on adapting one of the darkest storylines from the comics
Blending fantasy and horror, The Sandman boasts a number of dark moments across its first season. None, however, come anywhere close to reaching the harrowing heights of episode 5, which sees the Netflix show adapt the comic’s scariest issue: 24 Hours.
Warning: the following contains spoilers for The Sandman episode 5. If you have not watched "24/7" then turn back now...
While the series centers on Morpheus, lord of dreams, the installment barely features the protagonist – and instead focuses on David Thewlis’s villain John Dee. The illegitimate son of Sir Roderick Burgess (Charles Dance), the magic user who imprisoned Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) for over 100 years and stole his tools, John regards Morpheus’s powerful reality-bending ruby as his birthright. Having previously been driven mad by using the stone, John manages to get it back from his mother and escape Arkham Asylum, seeking refuge on a rainy night inside a diner. There, he toys with the staff and regulars using the ruby for a whole day, before having them murder each other or themselves in gruesome ways.
"[It] was a particular challenge for me," showrunner Allan Heinberg tells Total Film, when asked what it was like to bring the story to life on screen. "It ended up being the second episode that we shot because of the COVID situation in the UK. In the comics, it's narrated by an omniscient narrator, who gives us what's happening in everybody's mind at different points in the story. We had a much more naturalistic approach to it, so we had to figure out how to introduce the characters in a way that makes you fall in love with them before the dark strain starts to take over.
"It was a challenge but then, also really rewarding because it freed me up as a
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