Author Neil Gaiman has said that the production on the much-awaited Netflix series on his critically-acclaimed novel “The Sandman” will start in 2021. The author had announced the series on his 1989 novel in July 2019. Netflix has struck a huge financial deal with Warner Bros Television to adapt the bestseller into a live-action TV series.

In an interview with Digital Spy, Gaiman said the series was scheduled to start production in May this year but got pushed due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re working with Netflix, we were meant to start shooting at the end of May. Given this COVID world, everything is on pause,” the 59-year-old writer said.

“The Sandman” follows a tale of horror, dark fantasy, and mythology tale Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and the Endless, the powerful group of siblings that includes Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium (as well as Dream). Gaiman said the Netflix series would be set in 2021.

“The Netflix version is going to begin in 2021, so Morpheus will have been kept prisoner in the Netflix version for 105 years rather than 70 years… We’ll take that one, see what that does. “It’s already in the scripts, it does interesting things because… if we were creating this character now, what gender would the character be? If we were creating the character now, who would they be? What would they be doing? And going on from there,” he added.