Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ Season 2 Update, Everything We Know

The Sandman appears to be performing well for Netflix, and everyone involved is just sort of hanging around, being ready for season 2 to get greenlit. They’re very ready, in fact, and it could mean we see season 2 faster than we might otherwise, given that this eventuality seems more planned for than most.

A Rolling Stone interview with showrunner Allan Heinberg reveals just how much has gone into planning out season 2 already:

“Well, we had a writer’s room for 20 weeks to talk about Season Two and to break stories and generate outlines and first drafts. And now I’m having early talks with production design and VFX and getting everything into position, so that if we are lucky enough to have a Season Two, we’re ready to go, ideally with the same team who made Season One.”

• Heinberg goes on to say that while parts of season 2 would be in chronological order, they would also be pulling out standalone aspects from other pieces of the story to air there, like a storyline that has Dream freeing his ancient love, Nada, from Hell, something that was only teased in season 1.
• The tone will shift somewhat, given that Heinberg admits things never really get darker than 24/7, the already infamous diner episode of the show, as it moves more into fantasy.
• When asked just how many seasons The Sandman could run, Heinberg does not give a specific total, but says that with all the source material at play, the show “could go on for quite some time, if we had the viewers.”
• He also mentions that they want to do more with Johanna Constantine in the present, adding weight to the idea that perhaps a Constantine spin-off could be made separate from the main show, an idea Neil Gaiman has already said he’d like to see, when he was asked about it by a fan.

While Heinberg is cautious in his answers not to take anything for granted, this does seem like someone who has carefully measured out multiple seasons, especially a second season, based on the assumed performance of the first.

Again, even though the show is performing well on its face, I do wonder if Netflix has any issues in this being a part WB production, and they like the wholly own their own big series these days, and this is the remnants of a deal years in the making. I do think they might see something poetic in having a high quality DC comics adaptation by WB in an era when WB is struggling with DC in many ways on their own streaming service. But we’ll see if “pettiness” plays into renewal or not. So far, things are looking generally pretty good.

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