David S. Goyer understands: it was “bizarre” to work on “The Sandman” Season 2 after varied allegations in opposition to creator and co-creator Neil Gaiman had been made public. Goyer, created the sequence alongside Gaiman, advised Selection that whereas Gaiman “wasn’t as concerned in Season 2 as he was in Season 1,” the accusations in opposition to him nonetheless impacted the rollout of the Netflix present.
Gaiman was accused by a number of girls of partaking in nonconsensual “tough and degrading intercourse” and coercion throughout Tortoise Media‘s four-part podcast “Grasp: The Allegations In opposition to Neil Gaiman.” Gaiman denied the sexual assault and rape allegations in July 2024. Amid the claims in opposition to Gaiman, his “Good Omens” sequence debuted a 3rd season that consisted solely of a 90-minute finale episode; an animated venture was additionally shelved.
“The Sandman” Season 2, which begins streaming on July 3, would be the remaining season of the DC Comics sequence. On the time when the allegations in opposition to Gaiman had been launched, Season 2 was within the midst of filming. (Season 2 had been introduced in 2022, with Tom Sturridge, Boyd Holbrook, Patton Oswalt, Gwendoline Christie, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, Stephen Fry, John Cameron Mitchell, and extra stars returning.)
“When the accusations first got here out, I believe we had been three weeks from ending filming Season 2 — so we had been very, very far down the trail,” Goyer stated of how manufacturing weathered the claims in opposition to Gaiman. “Neil wasn’t as concerned in Season 2 as he was in Season 1. Clearly, it’s sophisticated. I’ve great respect for girls that come ahead in these conditions. It’s actually regarding, however I do know that Netflix, on the time, felt, ‘God, we spent two years making this factor. There’s all these actors and writers and administrators concerned that, if we didn’t air it, wouldn’t be totally compensated for it.’ And so we simply determined, we’re going to let this work communicate for itself. However I’d be loopy to say it wasn’t bizarre.”
Goyer added of the accusations, “I can say, personally, I had by no means glimpsed any of this.”
The screenwriter additional shared that “The Sandman” was set to wrap with Season 2 whatever the allegations in opposition to Gaiman. “[The ending] was deliberate greater than two years in the past. And we had a variety of discussions, [showrunner] Allan [Heinberg] and I, with Netflix,” Goyer stated. “And clearly we love the books, however one of many issues about a number of the story arcs is that Dream [Sturridge] isn’t in them very a lot. And so after we had been discussing, everybody’s concern was like, are we actually going to form of deviate and do six episodes that Dream’s not in in any respect, apart from the very finish? And the opposite factor was despite the fact that the unique comedian e-book run, I believe, was 75 points, we simply ended up burning by story sooner than we thought we’d, as a result of the person points, a variety of them, after they had been first being printed, are solely 17 pages.”
He continued, “So in lots of instances, the supply materials to make an episode was 4 and even generally 5 points. So after we first went into it, we thought it will be presumably 4 10 episode seasons. Now, the primary season had 11, the second season is 12. After we talked by it, we felt, let’s make a barely larger Season 2 and take it by to the tip. There’s at all times the likelihood that we may do a number of the different spinoff materials, if you’ll. But it surely was only a query of, like, will we do it as three seasons? Will we do it as 4? And once more, we simply determined, let’s simply go for it and take it right through ‘The Wake.’”