Michael Jackson wanted to star in the initial Sandman adaptation

In an alternate timeline, Michael Jackson could play Morpheus, aka The Lord of Dreams and the main character of “The Sandman,” producer Neil Gaiman.

It has long been known that a film adaptation of the beloved comic series has been in the works at various stages over the years, including a Joseph Gordon-Levitt production in 2013 and a film version announced later. with star. It turns out he wasn’t the only one interested in the role.

Between Netflix series and a three-decade journey, Gaiman said in a recent appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that the top executive at Warner Bros. told him about the King of Pop’s interest in the role.

“In 1996, I was taken to Warner, where the then president of Warner Bros. sat me down and told me that Michael Jackson had called him the day before and asked if he would play Morpheus. in “The Sandman”. I thought? And I was like, ‘Ooh-um.’

The writer, who is also behind “Coraline” and “American Gods,” also said he naively thought the project, a smash hit of the 1990s and beyond, would be easy to pick. “I was like, ‘It’s going to be so easy to choose the cast! We just found, you know, an English-speaking actor who has great cheekbones, a lot of them, ‘”he explained. around 1500 Morpheus hearings.

“The Sandman,” which premiered on Netflix on August 5, stars Tom Sturridge as a powerful cosmic creature who controls all our dreams and is forced in various ways to restore peace after spending a century in captivity. He has to travel through worlds and timelines. His listener and writer is Alan Heinberg.

In its debut, “The Sandman” peaked at number 1 in Netflix’s top 10 with 69.5 million watched hours and has yet to give up its number one spot to other British series.