Netflix’s The Sandman has its Lord of Dreams in Tom Sturridge – a secret kept for three months after the series began filming. Six other cast members of the Neil Gaiman adaptation were also announced.

Netflix and Neil Gaiman have finally announced some of the stars of their upcoming adaptation of Gaiman’s The Sandman, the 75-issue genre-bending comic book that first propelled Gaiman into the public eye and helped to make his name as a master storyteller.

The Sandman is a blend of fantasy, mythology, history, and horror – with the occasional superhero or supervillain popping up in some unusual ways, as it’s set in the wider DC universe. Picked up by Netflix in June 2019, it was originally due to begin shooting in May 2020, and got delayed due to COVID. Filming for The Sandman finally began in the UK on October 15 last year under showrunner Allan Heinberg.

Sturridge was heard to be in talks for the role, but the fact that there have been no true leaks or location sightings is quite a feat in this day and age, and the fact that no casting was officially announced before filming either is quite an unusual choice in a media landscape where most new shows are looking to create buzz every step of the way into production as soon as stars are attached. And Sandman sure has some stars worth publicizing!

But The Sandman is doing things their own way, and the element of mystery is certainly something many Gaiman fans would be used to when it comes to his work, so why not here as well? A poll on Gaiman’s Twitter, teasing this announcement, showed that 45% of participants would be okay with the news staying secret. Nevertheless, today, we are happy to finally learn the identities of who will bring these seven crucial Sandman characters to life.

The eponymous Sandman. Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, Prince of Stories, Lord Shaper, or simply Dream. Dream is one of seven siblings called the Endless – ancient beings, bigger and more powerful than gods, more like ideas or embodiments of concepts related to personhood and existence: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium (who was once Delight.) Dream is the master and the manifestation of all dreams and stories, holding the power of “all that is not in reality.” The story begins with the capture – and eventual escape – of Dream, who was caught by occultist Roderick Burgess, hoping to catch and control his sister, Death, and gain immortality. Understandably, Dream is not too happy about his imprisonment and the century of time he’s missed while being held prisoner in a basement.

Sturridge was rumored for the role, and in my personal opinion he’s a perfect fit. I might be biased – I’ve been a huge fan of his since The Boat That Rocked – but over the years, as people have fancast the comic, every pale, dark haired British actor has had a turn in the Sandman fandom spotlight, and I don’t know if any of them have ever fit the Dream ideal for me as well as this guy does.

But keep in mind it’s likely that Sturridge will not play Dream for every single scene he’s featured in. In the comic, Dream appears to different beings differently sometimes – even once as a cat – but an important story featuring Dream’s relationship with Nada, an African queen “of the city where man began,” shows Dream manifesting as an African man alongside her.

Aforementioned occultist, Lord Magus of the Order of the Ancient Mysteries, miserable old man. He’s the one who traps Dream in the cellar of his manor house back in 1916, strips Dream of his cloak and powerful Dreaming tools, and continually tries to bargain with him for eternal life. In the comics, his son, Alex Burgess, “inherits” Dream after his death, and Dream is able to escape in Alex’s old age.

Gender-swapped from the comic, loyal Lucien becomes Lucienne. Lucienne is the head librarian of the Dreaming, one of Dream’s most important palace staff in the Dreaming realm. The library contains a copy of of every book that was ever imagined – even if the book was never actually written or published. Lucien(ne) was the one person who didn’t abandon their post in the Dreaming in Dream’s absence, and tried to keep things running. Due to this loyalty, the librarian becomes of one of Dream’s closest confidants, his most trusted servant.

Brother of Abel, a dream creation based on the Biblical Cain. He embodies the story of the first murderer, and consistently, compulsively acts out Abel’s murder on a regular basis. The brothers are sometimes comic relief, but they also grant refuge to Dream upon his return.

Brother of Cain, a dream creation based on the Biblical Abel. He embodies the story of the first victim. Every time Cain kills him, he comes back to life. A character full of pathos, he is always fantasising about a happier and more loving relationship with his brother.

A nightmare created by Dream who goes rogue from the Dreaming and moonlights in the real world as a serial killer. He has teeth where his eyes should be, and usually covers these with a slick pair of sunglasses in the waking world. A later iteration of The Corinthian becomes an ally.

Ruler of Hell. You know the drill. This is the DC Comics iteration of Satan that Gaiman introduced in The Sandman, who went on to be further developed in his own spin-off comic book, penned by Mike Carey. You may have met a version of Sandman’s Lucifer before in Lucifer, the urban fantasy starring Tom Ellis which began its life on Fox in 2016 and was picked up by Netflix after Fox’s cancellation. Now that Lucifer and The Sandman both call Netflix home, I thought Ellis may reprise the role, but – all due respect to him – this is much more interesting. Plus, Sandman’s Lucifer was physically based on David Bowie, and if there’s one thing I need in 2021, it’s Gwendoline Christie channelling David Bowie in order to channel the Morningstar.

And that’s our first seven cast members for Netflix’s The Sandman. There will be dozens more announcements of note to come in season one, hundreds in the complete series.

Before today, the only imagery that fans have seen from the series – at all – is the blurry corner of some dailies footage, shared by Gaiman to, er, me, on Twitter.

The scene being filmed here was the moment that Dream is summoned by Roderick Burgess and trapped in a magic circle in the bowels of the old manor. Dream’s escape from this prison is what sets off the action of our story. Even from the corner of the frame that Gaiman shared, keen-eyed fans can tell that this shot is set to be a perfect recreation of the iconic cover page for The Sandman issue #1, “Sleep of the Just.”

The Sandman was originally published by Vertigo as part of DC Comics, and the new Netflix adaptation, produced by DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television, was developed by Allan Heinberg with Heinberg, Gaiman, and David S. Goyer serving as executive producers. Like several other of Gaiman’s most popular works (notably Good Omens) an adaptation of The Sandman was the subject of much interest almost since its publication, but as attempts came and went the title became stuck in development hell since the 1990s.

In more recent years, Gaiman turned down a pitch by Supernatural creator Eric Kripke in 2010, and Goyer was attached to a film adaptation alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who would star and potentially direct. This fell apart also, with one of the attached screenwriters, Eric Heisserer, claiming that the story was better suited to something like a HBO series – “The structure of the feature film really doesn’t mesh with this.”

It makes sense that such a serialized and clearly segmented – almost episodic – story should need the breadth of a TV series to truly work on screen, though an 11-hour audio adaptation of The Sandman volumes 1-3, directed by Dirk Maggs with an all-star cast narrated by Gaiman and led by James McAvoy as Dream, was released last year to wide acclaim – the first successful adaptation of The Sandman to exist. (The Audible series was also renewed for two more seasons today – enough to cover the whole run of comics.)

Gaiman has stated that he is more involved day-to-day with this Netflix adaptation than he is with Starz’s American Gods, but less than he was with Amazon Prime’s Good Omens. (In fairness, it would be hard for him to be more involved than he was with Good Omens, on which he served as showrunner as well as the writer of every episode, trusting no one else to handle the material in honor of his late friend and co-author Terry Pratchett.)

Due to Gaiman’s involvement, we’re promised that Sandman is Sandman – it looks and feels like it should, and stays very close to the story. The big difference, we’ve been told, is that the setting will be modern day. The comics were written and set in the late 80s, and the series will not be an 80s period piece, it will be set in 2021, with 30 years added to Dream’s imprisonment to make up the difference.

According to Gaiman’s Tumblr, the series is shooting the “diner episode” – that’s issue #6, “24 Hours,” in which John Dee (DC’s supervillain Doctor Destiny) escapes from Arkham Asylum and passes time in a diner by cruelly twisting reality for the other patrons, forcing them to kill each other or themselves.

Given these pieces of news, Netflix’s The Sandman is basically guaranteed to cover all of Sandman’s first collected volume, Preludes & Nocturnes, in which Dream is on a quest to retrieve his three most important tools of the trade after a very long imprisonment. The John Dee diner story is the last stop on that quest, and Gaiman has already revealed that the series will also include the issue #3 “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” featuring John Constantine and the retrieval of the first item, and issue #4 “A Hope in Hell,” featuring an awe-inspiring word battle and the retrieval of the second. Dream’s Endless sister Death first appears in Preludes’ final issue, “The Sound of Her Wings.”

But Gaiman has also mentioned that Sandman season 1 will also adapt issue #14, “Collectors” (set at a serial killer convention, and featuring that toothy-eyed fan-favorite, The Corinthian) so it sounds like that at least some, if not all, of the second volume – The Doll’s House – will be covered in The Sandman season 1 as well.

Today’s news did not confirm the much-anticipated casting of Death or of John Constantine, the bisexual occult detective created by Alan Moore who starred in the Hellblazer and Constantine titles and first featured in Sandman in “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Rumors have abounded about the Sandman TV casting due to iMDB mix-ups with the audio drama cast – these characters were voiced by Kat Dennings and Taron Egerton respectively.

The internet continues to speculate that Egerton may be transferring over to the live-action version of his character, based on a Deadline report that has him “attached to an adaptation of Sandman.” Which may continue to be mixed messaging about the Audible role, or may be something more.

I’d personally kind of like to see that role go back to Matt Ryan, purely because he’s so married to the part. He’s played Constantine in his own headlining show Constantine on NBC (cancelled after one season, but developed by none other than David S. Goyer) as well as on the CW’s Arrowverse and in a number of DC animated films.

However, he’s currently appearing as a series regular on Legends of Tomorrow as Constantine, so his Constantine dance card might be full, and Egerton would be great as well – or whoever else they might happen to have in mind. Given today’s casting announcements, anything is possible and there’s a lot more exciting news to come.

The Sandman does not yet have a premiere date, but we can assume that it would be fall 2021 at the very earliest.