Dream Dies, Daniel Explained, Season 3

The ending of the series is very close to exactly what Neil Gaiman crafted in “The Wake,” the concluding volume of his original DC comicbook series “The Sandman.” The conclusion to the adaptation was decided on through many talks between the TV show’s co-creators Gaiman, Allan Heinberg (who also serves as showrunner) and David S. Goyer, as well as Netflix and studio Warner Bros., about how much of Dream’s story and that of his siblings, The Endless, they could feasibly tell — and where to cut it off.

And while the team behind the series maintains the ending was also planned, written and produced prior to sexual misconduct accusations that were leveled against Gaiman last year (it’s confirmed that filming occurred in Summer 2023, though the end of the series wasn’t announced by Netflix until this January), Heinberg revealed to Variety that he did have plans for a Season 3 at one point and would still jump at the chance to continue on.

“I’m nothing but grateful at this point. If they came back tomorrow and said, ‘Let’s do a Season 3,’ I would do it instantly,” Heinberg said. “I would write this show for as long as they would let me. This show feels like all TV shows — like you can do anything. You can write about anything in the context of “The Sandman” in funny ways and romantic ways and scary ways. It’s this thing that Neil created to tell all manner of stories. So it has been a creative dream for me, and I am very sad to see it go, because I can’t imagine anything else having the range that this show has: imaginary realms and time periods. And this has been an education for me, this show, in every way — as all shows are, but more so this time. And I can’t believe Netflix let us make it.”

Technically, there is just one more piece of “The Sandman” still to come, as Netflix will release standalone episode “Death: The High Cost of Living,” revolving around Howell-Baptiste’s character, on July 31. You can check back with Variety next week for our interview with Heinberg about that episode, but for all intents and purposes, this is the end of “The Sandman” — the end of his story. But see below for Variety‘s interview with Heinberg about the ending of Netflix’s “The Sandman.”

The final episodes of the series skip over Gaiman’s “Fables & Reflections” volume of “The Sandman” graphic novel series. Why were they cut and did you consider adding in some pieces from those issues?

Those stories are so beautiful, but Dream isn’t in them. You’re literally going through the comic and looking for Dream, and when you don’t find him — well, we’re not going to be able to do those stories. So “Fables and Reflections,” there’s nothing that we really took from that. I mean, I would love to have told another Hob Gadling story. There’s so many stories from “Fables” that I would have loved to have told, and The Endless play a part, but they’re sort of outside of the main thrust of the narrative of those stories. So that was an easier decision.

How did Jacob Anderson’s casting as Daniel/the new Dream of The Endless come about? Did you consider anyone else for the role, or somehow having Tom portray the part still?

We knew that Daniel would be biracial because of his parents, so we knew we were drawing from that casting pool, and we knew that we wanted some continuity of type or affect between Tom and whoever this person was going to be. It was a very daunting role to cast, because you have to explain what it is to an actor, and it’s nearly impossible to explain. “You’re a toddler, and then you’re a grown man, and you’re yourself, but you’re also Tom Sturridge.” And I just was dreading that conversation with any actor, because nobody wants to play another actor. I also will be honest with you and say I was hoping that– not hoping, but if the numbers were big enough, I was like, “Well, I certainly want to cast an actor with whom I would want to make Season 3 in that role. So he has to be a star. He has to be somebody that the audience is going to want to follow if we if we were to have a Season 3.”

So when our casting directors Lucinda Syson and Natasha Vincent and I were talking about it, those were the points that we were trying to organize around. And then, to my absolute astonishment, Jacob was available. “Interview With the Vampire” Season 3 was a go — but there was a gap, and it was exactly the right size gap. And he was in town, and he had a gig and I talked to him on the way, and I was sort of dreading having to explain the character to him. But Jacob Anderson is a long time “Sandman” fan, and he knew exactly who Daniel was, and he was into it. So that’s all I needed to know. I didn’t have a script to give him, I was just like, “Trust me.” He was like, “No, I love Season 1. I trust you. I love Tom. I’ll try to bone up on my Tom Sturridge.” Like, I didn’t have to do anything. Jacob just showed up.

Then I wrote an outline that was very faithful to Daniel’s arc in the comic, and the studio and network came back and said, “He doesn’t change enough from the beginning to the end. He doesn’t have an objective in the beginning to figure out who he is.” And so that was the big change, sort of allowing Daniel to ask the questions that the audience wants to know the answers to: Who am I? How did this happen? Why did this happen? What am I supposed to do now? And sort of moving him from fear and apprehension and confusion to meeting my family for the first time, and maybe this isn’t going to be so terrible after all.

The way Jacob executed it was beautiful and elegant and nuanced. And he is such a fine actor and such an extraordinarily kind man. He was a pleasure. I mean, as you can imagine, this is 170 people saying goodbye to their job. Tom has been the most extraordinary No. 1 all of this time. And then here’s your new lead for two episodes — one scene in one episode — and I would have been terrified if I’d been Jacob, and he was the best. He was absolutely the best, and beloved instantly. He was just an instant team player and and because he was a fan of the show, he understood every nuance of it.

Tom was in only one scene in the finale — a brief flashback to a conversation between Dream and William Shakespeare that then transitions into Sturridge’s Dream sharing a look with Anderson’s Dream/Daniel. How did you decide on that one scene and whether it would be distracting if Tom’s Dream was around for too long in the finale, following his death int he previous episode?

I knew I wanted to have the scene between Dream and Shakespeare, because that’s the key to Dream’s psyche. That’s his secret pain this whole time. And it was in the writing of it — because you have to transition, in order to fit that in, I have to have Hob ask Daniel to illuminate what that was, in order for Daniel to reach down into himself and retrieve that memory. And then, as I was coming back from the flashback into the Daniel scene, I thought, “Can they just share a look? Just a momentary look?”

And I was so afraid the network and studio were going to say, “We don’t get this,” but they totally got it, and Neil got it, and was very generous and allowed it. And I hope the audience enjoys it, because I think it’s so beautiful. And Jamie Childs directed it so beautifully as well, and it didn’t feel like it was being asked to carry that much weight, like more weight than it could bear. You’re still in the main story. We don’t hang out there so long that we’re like, “Wait, what’s happening right now?”

So you’ve said there were conversations about potentially doing a Season 3 at one point — would that have included adapting “Overture” or the other followup “The Sandman” comics? Or was the main goal always to end with the original Dream’s story in “The Wake,” the official end to the initial “Sandman” series?

No, getting to the end of Dream’s story was definitely the goal. I was greedy and really wanted to include the scenes with Time and Night. At a certain time, Neil and I had talked about, “Well, is ‘Overture’ a miniseries? Is ‘Overture’ a standalone? Is it animated? Is it both?” We had a lot of grand plans for “Overture.” And so I felt a little guilty saying, “Can I just cherry pick my two favorite scenes from it and and build it into the body of the episode?” But I think at that point, it was so late in the game, and we knew this was the end, and he saw what I was trying to do, and definitely supported it.

But going beyond it, I would have loved to have told at all of the stories in a different version of this show. But because we chose to tell Dream’s story, at least for me, this was the strongest way to do it. And everything from all the other stories that we selected supports, and I hope, illuminates his arc along the way. And we made it as laser-focused as we could on watching his development through time and space. So in a different version of the show, yes, I would love to have done all of them, but this was a very specific way of making our way through the source material.

What’s next for you?

I am still at Warner Bros., so I would love to work with James Gunn and Peter Safran on something. I would love to write more romantic comedic stuff in the vein of “Sex and the City” and the Shondaland stuff that I’ve been doing. I’d love to help other people work on their shows, if I could be helpful. I’m just going to keep going.

This interview has been edited and condensed.