Netflix's The Sandman wasn't the first adaptation of the comic series that Neil Gaiman has seen—but it was the best.
The author, who created The Sandman comic books that the show is based on, revealed Aug. 23 that he had previously turned down several film offers in the past, but went so far as to leak one particularly bad one—written by A Star Is Born producer Jon Peters—to the press.
"A guy in Jon Peters' office phoned me up and he said, 'So Neil, have you had a chance to read the script we sent you?'" he recalled to Rolling Stone. "And I said, 'Well, yes. Yes, I did. I haven't read all of it, but I've read enough.' He says, 'So, pretty good. Huh?' And I said, 'Well, no. It really isn't.' He said, 'Oh, come on. There must have been stuff in there you loved.' I said, 'There was nothing in there I loved. There was nothing in there I liked. It was the worst script that I've ever read by anybody. It's not just the worst Sandman script. That was the worst script I've ever been sent.'"
Gaiman went on to say that he anonymously sent the script to Ain't It Cool News, who wrote an article about "how it was the worst script they'd ever been sent." After that, he said, Peters focused on producing 1999's Wild Wild West. (Peters did not respond to an E! News request for comment.)
"I'm not sure if it would've been an action movie or quite what it would've been," Gaiman added. "It was a mess. It never got better than a mess."
Gaiman said that Peters had included several "really stupid" changes from the comic books, including mechanical spiders and changing the main characters, Lucifer, Morpheus, and the Corinthian, to identical triplets. The plot, he said, morphed into a race to snatch "the ruby, the helm, and the bag of sand before midnight on 1999."
Instead, Netflix's The Sandman series—which Gaiman executive produced—follows Morpheus (Tom Sturridge) as he escapes capture and sets out to restore his power.
Despite being the No. 1 show on Netflix worldwide, Gaiman isn't confident that the series will get a second season. On Aug. 21, the author reminded loyal fans that The Sandman is "a really expensive show."
"And for Netflix to release the money to let us make another season we have to perform incredibly well," he wrote on Twitter. "So yes, we've been the top show in the world for the last two weeks. That still may not be enough."
The Sandman is now streaming on Netflix.