Gaiman defines ideal 'Sandman' director

Neil Gaiman has defined the qualities that a director would need to work on a film of his legendary Sandman comic series.

After the success of recent Gaiman-related film projects including Coraline and Beowulf, fans have continued to call for a movie version of Sandman and its spinoff miniseries Death.

Explaining what sort of person would be necessary to fill the role of director to Jam! Showbiz, Gaiman said: "I think it’s probably some kid who, right now, is around 26-years-old.

"He may or may not have directed his first movie, but he loves Sandman and he has the same amount of dedication to the material that Peter Jackson had to Lord Of The Rings and Sam Rami had to Spider-Man.

"They’re also not scared of changing the things about it that are not cinematic into things that are cinema. Otherwise you end up with something like the Sin City movie, where you’d rather read the comic. I remember watching that and thinking, 'I think I prefer these characters better when Frank [Miller] draws them'."

The decision to turn Sandman into a film rests largely with DC Comics, who own the rights to the series.