Netflix's 'The Sandman' Spinoff Seemingly Confirmed For Popular Character

Netflix's The Sandman, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's dark supernatural horror comic book, is off to a flying start on the streaming service. Amongst the rave reviews, there's one character who is a clear standout, so much so that the writer himself has shown support for a possible spinoff for this charming detective.

To the uninitiated, The Sandman follows Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, after he escapes his captivity and attempts to restore his kingdom of Dreaming. While the scale and the sheer lavishness of the world of The Sandman was originally considered to be "unfilmable", the show has knocked the socks off critics and long-time fans of the story, with one reviewer calling it "easily one of the best small-screen comic adaptations ever made." If you want something done, I suppose you hand the reins over to one of the biggest media companies in the world.

Take a look at the trailer below!

There are a dizzying number of characters in the show, yet one short scroll through social media shows it's evident that viewers are head over heels with Johanna Constantine, played by Jenna Coleman. The character of Constantine is beloved (Keanu, anyone?) and Coleman has brought out his acerbic, devil-may-care personality as well as his closed-off vulnerability in a brand new way. In a now deleted Tweet, Gaiman is as on board with the concept of a Constantine spinoff as the fans are, and that hasty deletion might be a suggestion that there is something in the offing. I mean, he did say he thinks Jenna is the best portrayal of Constantine to date.

You are not alone in this thought. https://t.co/nysQJYUqNg

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) August 5, 2022

Constantine is a man in the comic books, so there was an unfortunately vocal corner of the Internet demanding to know just why the character had been swapped. "It was economy. It was the economy of filmmaking," said Gaiman in an interview with SlashFilm. "We started [The] Sandman going - 'You are starting here. This is the first place. You are not expected to have brought any knowledge with you.' When I wrote Dream a Little Dream of Me, Sandman issue 3, I knew everybody knew John Constantine. He had his own comic, Hellblazer. I wanted to bring some of his readers into Sandman. Later on, I had an enormous amount of fun creating Johanna Constantine, his ancestor, and having her appear a couple of times, and it was really nice and solid."

Ergo, it looks like anything is possible in Johanna's own misadventures, which means we might have a lot to look forward to.