With Joseph Gordon-Levitt attached to star, produce and possibly direct the upcoming adaptation of the brilliant comic series Sandman, now the time has come to give him a script to work from. Warner Bros. is getting busy with that very task, as writer Jack Thorne has come aboard the project to pen the screenplay. According to Deadline, Thorne will be working from a pitch designed by David S. Goyer, whose previous comic book credits include The Dark Knight trilogy, the Blade trilogy, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
Based on the Neil Gaiman comics that began in 1989, Sandman follows the story of Morpheus, the personification of dreams, who finds himself imprisoned by an occult ritual for 70 years. After managing to escape, he both takes vengeance against the people who kept him in chains and works to rebuild the empire that has crumbled in his absence. Gordon-Levitt will be taking the lead role in the film, and should he wind up in the director's chair it will be the follow-up to his behind-the-camera debut, Don Jon:
Thorne is an English writer who got his start working on multiple UK television series, including Shameless and Skins. In 2013 he did some work on the script for the thriller How I Live Now starring Saoirse Ronan, and later this year we'll be able to see his adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel A Long Way Down, starring Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots.
The time table for the big screen Sandman adaptation is a bit of a mystery right now. Gordon-Levitt is one of the most in-demand actors of the moment and undoubtedly has a bunch of projects lined up, but it sounds like he's very passionate about this one and could wind up making it a priority. You can currently hear him voicing the lead character in Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, which is in limited theaters now, and later this year he will be one of the many stars featured in Robert Rodriguez's Sin City: A Dame To Kill For.
