Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN adaptation for Netflix

[Jussi]

https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-sandman-season-2-netflix-renewal-status-and-what-to-expect-09-2022/

The Sandman Season 2 Netflix Renewal Status

Has The Sandman been renewed or canceled at Netflix?

Official Renewal Status: Not Yet Renewed (last updated: September 15th, 2022)
Our Renewal Prediction: 50/50

The Sandman has not yet been renewed for a second season and after a month’s wait, we’ve revised our prediction to the show now having a 50/50 chance of getting renewed.

[3CityApache]

That's not very optimistic... Hope it gets picked up elswhere even if Netflix drops it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

What is wrong with Netflix that a well received well reviewed first season isn’t a slam dunk for a pick up?

[Corvinus85]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What is wrong with Netflix that a well received well reviewed first season isn’t a slam dunk for a pick up?

Quantity over quality seems to be the Netflix moto. 

[Heartofice]

What do we know about the actual viewing stats? Don’t Netflix tend to base their decisions on how many viewers dropped off the show?

Is there a possibility that people stopped watching or never finished and so it isn’t as successful as it looks at first glance?

[Darryk]

Ridiculous, considering some of the shows they've renewed.

Can we start a petition or something?

 

[Ran]

Going to be honest, we left the 5th episode sitting a long while half way done  before we got around to finishing it yesterday. We did follow up with the 6th yesterday, though. The 5th was good, Thewlis was excellent, but I admit I prefer the starker and crueler  (and madder) portrayal of what Dee is doing in the comic. 6th episode, Kirby Howell-Baptise did a fine job with Death, especially the lighter moments (I was concerned that they had made her too .... I don't know, "normal", from the one clip they released) but OTOH I think those moments were a bit too few compared to my recollection of the character. Also, Linda pointed out that the actress is pretty much the same age as Tom Sturridge, whereas the artwork depicting Death tends to make her seem rather younger in appearance (even though she is in fact older than Dream), which might have been nice to capture.

Still, good episode, elevated for me by just how good the Hob Gadling half of the episode was. I really think some of the standalones from the comics would be the most special parts of the series, because they're so beautifully and tightly written. The Shakespeare episodes and "Ramadan" in particular.

[Heartofice]

I wonder how many people got stuck at the 5th episode, I hear it a lot. That might explain the decision partly. Second half of the season was not as good as the first.

[Kalnestk Oblast]

My suspicion about Netflix making a choice is around the following:

- Sandman got great ratings; how many new subscribers did it pull in?

- how many people would unsubscribe if they didn't have Sandman? 

That's what matters to Netflix as the top numbers go. The actual ratings isn't as important as keeping the subscribers still with them. Compare this to, say, the way Stranger Things by itself increased overall subscription numbers for multiple months, and note that it cost similar amounts of money to Sandman. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, KalVsWade said:

That's what matters to Netflix as the top numbers go. The actual ratings isn't as important as keeping the subscribers still with them. Compare this to, say, the way Stranger Things by itself increased overall subscription numbers for multiple months, and note that it cost similar amounts of money to Sandman. 

I think Stranger Things cost $30 million an episode (or averaged out at that), which is around twice what Sandman cost.

But Sandman was very expensive for a first season of a show.

[Maithanet]

I would be surprised if Netflix were basing it's renewal decision of Sandman on how much it moves the needle on subscribers.  That is just a very big lift for any new show.  Viewership and general buzz seems like the thing to look at about whether people are interested in the show.  And viewership for Sandman has been great.  It was #1 on Netflix for 3 weeks in a row.  That's a hit, by any normal metric. 

I don't really understand what more Netflix could have expected for this show than what it's gotten. 

[Werthead]

It's entirely possible that Netflix has found its subscriber ceiling, at least in the current economic climate, and that the measure for a show might be if it stopped people from unsubscribing in a given period, as well as subscribing or re-subscribing. On that basis I suspect Sandman did pretty well.

[Kalnestk Oblast]

7 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I would be surprised if Netflix were basing it's renewal decision of Sandman on how much it moves the needle on subscribers.  That is just a very big lift for any new show.  Viewership and general buzz seems like the thing to look at about whether people are interested in the show.  And viewership for Sandman has been great.  It was #1 on Netflix for 3 weeks in a row.  That's a hit, by any normal metric. 

I don't really understand what more Netflix could have expected for this show than what it's gotten. 

I think that Netflix does actually care about the subscribers and moving the needle, especially on attracting certain demos of subscribers. They do a lot of analysis on who they expect to enjoy things and they target certain content based on those types of things in order to attract demos, countries, etc. 

In that vein, having a lot of their existing subs watch the show may be great, but it also may be redundant; are those people all people who watch Netflix regularly anyway and have been for a while? This is the sort of thing Netflix doesn't advertise all that much (and Barry skewered well with the Algorithm deciding people's fate) but it's absolutely a big part of it, and simply having people watch isn't as important as the amount it costs compared to where they expect it to go.

The other, other part is the general industry, which is in a major downturn. Tech in particular is running scared, entertainment is fragmenting, and Netflix may be significantly worried about spending a large amount of money on something that isn't Stranger Things level of a hit. 

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It's entirely possible that Netflix has found its subscriber ceiling, at least in the current economic climate, and that the measure for a show might be if it stopped people from unsubscribing in a given period, as well as subscribing or re-subscribing. On that basis I suspect Sandman did pretty well.

It's totally possible, true. It's also possible that it's doing bad in that regard for whatever reason and isn't retaining the right kinds of people. At the very least I think it's reasonable to state that given how long it's taking them to make a decision it is not a easy slam dunk. 

[polishgenius]

18 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I don't really understand what more Netflix could have expected for this show than what it's gotten. 

I think the problem is that when they commissioned, made and paid for Sandman they were still adding new subscribers every quarter, but in between all that and it coming out, they've lost them for the first time. I suspect there are some hurried calculations being done behind the scenes and possibly negotiations about what the budget for season 2 would be, before they jump in. 

[Poobah]

I have to think that if Netflix ditches it then one of their rivals, likely the Bezos Infinite Money Machine will pick it up, which surely must be part of their calculations.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Poobah said:

I have to think that if Netflix ditches it then one of their rivals, likely the Bezos Infinite Money Machine will pick it up, which surely must be part of their calculations.

Which would suck because I don’t have Amazon prime.

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, Poobah said:

I have to think that if Netflix ditches it then one of their rivals, likely the Bezos Infinite Money Machine will pick it up, which surely must be part of their calculations.

Probably not. The price tag is so astronomical I can't see anyone else really going for it, especially Amazon after they just cancelled the almost-as-good Paper Girls rather than putting a relatively small amount of money into marketing it properly.

[Heartofice]

Yeah this might be a signal for the changing landscape of streaming tv from now on. Does this mirror how network tv channels moved to filling their roster with a truck load of cheap reality tv shows instead of expensive dramas? Will we see more of that?

[Veltigar]

Question, but why is Sandman so expensive? I thought it was a great show and it still is highly likely to end up as my favorite fantasy show of the year (though I have to admit, House of the Dragon has a shot of overtaking it), but unlike Rings of Power or House of the Dragon it didn't strike me as that expensive?

[3CityApache]

On 9/16/2022 at 5:40 PM, Heartofice said:

I wonder how many people got stuck at the 5th episode, I hear it a lot. That might explain the decision partly. Second half of the season was not as good as the first.

I was indeed stuck after the 5th episode for a few weeks, I'm not even sure why, as I liked it very much. But I just finished it last week and I loved it immensly. 6th episode with Death was great, and the last sequence of episodes with Rose I had to binge, I just couldn't stop. And I, for one, liked the second part of the season even more. I would be really pissed if they dropped it.