Sandman: Neil Gaiman defends casting for Netflix live-action adaptation

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

So this is cool to see! After more casting was revealed for Netflix's upcoming live-action adaptation of Neil Gaiman's seminal graphic novel Sandman last week, the thin-skinned, CHUD-y side of the internet got really mad about it (because of course they did).

But, luckily, Gaiman is having none of it, especially when it comes to the casting of Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death (who is the personification of an abstract idea…why would that necessitate her being white?), and the casting on nonbinary performer Mason Alexander Park as Desire (who, as Gaiman points out, was always nonbinary, even in the comics). 

You can check out his responses from his official Twitter account below:

I give all the fucks about the work. I spent 30 years successfully battling bad movies of Sandman.

I give zero fucks about people who don't understand/ haven't read Sandman whining about a non-binary Desire or that Death isn't white enough. Watch the show, make up your minds. https://t.co/KcNzap8Kt4

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) May 29, 2021

Well, yes. But you'd have to have read the comics to know that. And the shouty people appear to have skipped that step. https://t.co/ObTfMWJCpF

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) May 29, 2021

Meanwhile, no release date as of yet, but we'll keep you posted!

Here's the official synopsis:

The Sandman tells the tale of Morpheus – a.k.a. Dream of the Endless – an impossibly old being who is also the living personification of dreams. He lives in a realm called, appropriately enough, The Dreaming, where he tends to the REM state of being all over the universe; of course, this means he spends a lot of time near Earth, courting gods, inspiring fools to become authors, and occasionally arousing waking terrors.