The Sandman Season 2: Neil Gaiman Explains Why There’s Still No News On The Show’s Renewal

Creator of The Sandman, Neil Gaiman, explains why there’s still no renewal news from Netflix for The Sandman Season 2. This is despite the support the series got from its viewers and fans.

After the long wait for its live-action adaptation, The Sandman finally started streaming on Netflix last month. The news about the live-action adaptation of The Sandman started over 30 years ago. Originally, the goal was to make a big-screen adaptation for it. But after years of setbacks, it became a live-action TV series.

The show premiered strongly on the worldwide streamer. It even hit the No. 1 on Netflix’s Top 10 TV list for two consecutive weeks. Because of the show’s popularity, the show’s creators released a two-part anthology episode. This added an additional episode to the original ten episodes of the season.

And yet, despite the show’s attention and support from fans and regular viewers, Netflix hasn’t made an announcement regarding The Sandman Season 2. The lack of news about the renewal of the dark fantasy series got fans perplexed and concerned about the series’ future.

The Sandman follows the story of Morpheus, more commonly known as Dream. The series starts with humans capturing Dream for over a decade, trying to harness his powers for their benefit. The show’s first season chronicles Dream’s intent to restore the balance in The Dreaming after being gone for 100 years. 

Neil Gaiman originally created The Sandman as part of DC Comics in 1989. Since then, the fantasy series has become a crowd favorite, due to its incredible writing and storytelling. The show received a positive reception from viewers, with an average score on Rotten Tomatoes of 87% among reviewers and an 80% score from audience members.

But despite the warm feedback the show had, there’s still no news for Netflix’s renewal and go signal for The Sandman Season 2. Neil Gaiman gives a brief explanation for this.

Netflix

Will there be a The Sandman Season 2?

In a recent tweet, the creator and executive producer of the show, Neil Gaiman, talked about this possibility. He shares the possible explanation why Netflix hasn’t greenlit the show for its second season. Gaiman explains that “data harvesting” for the show just recently finished. And it will take time for the streamer to decide the future of the show.

“Sandman Season 1 dropped Aug 5th. The data harvesting has only just finished – and is complicated by a lot of people not binge-watching it, but spreading it out, letting episodes sink in before watching the next. Telling @netflix to hurry up won’t make decisions s happen faster.”

Fans’ concern about the show’s renewal is understandable, given that Netflix tends to shut down series that didn’t perform well. Likewise, Netflix has renewed shows that got fewer viewers compared to popular series. 

Gaimen pointed out that the show is dissimilar to other popular shows on Netflix that got solid streaming numbers, like Stranger Things. The show’s status for its second season got more complicated after viewers of the show tended to watch it at a slow pace. It’s clear by this point that Netflix values the hours viewers spend binge-watching their shows. This is also one of the factors they look at when renewing shows.

More so, the production cost for each episode of the first season of The Sandman costs roughly around $15 million. This fact might even complicate more things and affect the renewal of The Sandman Season 2.

On a positive note, showrunner Allan Heinberg confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that he was already started holding writers’ rooms to work on the script for the show’s subsequent episodes.

While the timeline for The Sandman Season 2 is still in the dark, the possibility of its renewal is very much positive. You can watch the first season and its special episode exclusively on Netflix.

Paul is many things. He's a fan of anime, superheroes, and everything in between. He dedicates his downtime to annoying the heck out of his cats and dog.