It’s no secret that an on-screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s legendary comic book series The Sandman has been a pipe dream for quite some time. Discussions surrounding a potential adaptation of the sleeper hit fantasy series have swirled since the early ’90s. At one point, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cast as the titular Lord of Dreams back in 2016 before that, too, fizzled out.
While the role eventually went to Tom Sturridge, Gaiman revealed on a recent episode of Happy Sad Confused that Gordon-Levitt wasn’t the only actor vying for the role of Morpheus throughout the show’s decades-long journey to Netflix: Michael Jackson once threw his name into the ring…