uthor Neil Gaiman often writes about other realms and the permeable boundaries between them. Appropriately, the writer of the celebrated Sandman comic-book series and the award-winning novel American Gods is about to enter into a new realm himself, that mystical place known as Hollywood.
Gaiman recently announced a deal with New Line Cinema to adapt his comic-book miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living into a feature film, which he also plans to direct. This year will also see the release of the fantasy film MirrorMask, which Gaiman wrote with visionary artist-turned-director Dave McKean. For anyone else, moving into a new medium might seem like a daunting undertaking. Not for Gaiman, who is always eager for a new challenge.
Science Fiction Weekly recently spoke with the talented and prolific author about these and other recent endeavors.
You recently announced that New Line Cinema will be going forward with the Death movie, which has languished at Warner Brothers for a while.
Gaiman: Yeah. Probably with me directing. But we got it away from Warners, who developed it to the point where everybody was really happy with it and then they turned around and said, "Well, hang on. This is a $15 million movie, and we don't make them." Too cheap for them. And it's like, "What are you proposing that we do?" And they were going, "Well, we don't know."
At which point [Hellboy director] Guillermo del Toro became an executive producer on the project, and we put it together over at New Line, which is part of the Warners giant family. Death isn't allowed to leave the Warners giant family. So that's the biggest news. We have some casting, which I don't believe I'm allowed to talk about.
Are you worried that fans might be disappointed by your choice to play Death?
Gaiman: That, and the weekly e-mails that I get from people saying, "I look like Death. Let me play her. I'll send you my head shot." [Laughs.]
Are you planning on making it into a franchise?
Gaiman: Oh, God. I hope not.
So it'll be one movie covering the three-issue miniseries?
Gaiman: One movie based on Death: The High Cost of Living. It has a working title of Death and Me. And it's the story. It's a bit bigger, because if you filmed that comic you'd have a really good 45-minute movie. So more stuff happens. It's filled in. You learn more about the Eremite. In fact, one of my favorite scenes is right at the beginning; the Eremite in a bar in Alaska on his way to New York, causing trouble.
What's the time frame for the film?
Gaiman: We'll see. Don't know. We'll have a much better idea probably in a couple of weeks.
What about MirrorMask? It's been in production for a couple years now. Why has it taken so long?
Gaiman: Because it's being done by hand. That's the most boring answer. And because it's being done for no money.
With Dave McKean directing, you get a lot for your money, don't you?
Gaiman: True. ... You will see sequences that you've never seen before on film. You will see stuff that's the coolest stuff you've ever seen.
How close is it to completion?
Gaiman: I think there are two shots left to go. And then there's a final edit left to go, and some voice work and stuff like that. But we don't have everything yet because shots are set up and then they get rendered. And then they have to come out of the render farm. And there's stuff that still hasn't come out of the render farm yet.
But it's amazing. It's not like anything that's ever been done. One of the Sony executives said [after watching it], "Whoa, it's like Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast on acid for kids." And it is. Somebody else described it as Fellini's great lost children's movie. That's probably true too.
How much of it is live action and how much of it is drawn?
Gaiman: You won't be able to see a lot of the stuff that's drawn. Some of the stuff that's drawn is invisible, which is really strange. There are backgrounds and worlds where it looks like you're wandering around in Dave McKean worlds. But basically the first 20 minutes and the last five minutes are complete live action, in our world. Everything in our world, with the exception of the opening credits, which Dave did himself.
Is Dave a perfectionist?
Gaiman: The cool thing about this, the thing that's kind of frustrating and weird is that Dave looks at this and sees what isn't there yet, and everybody else looks at it and their jaws drop. ... He knows it's not finished yet, and he knows it's not quite where it could be.
They say that art is never finished, it's merely abandoned.
Gaiman: Absolutely. And I tend to believe that. In the case of MirrorMask we'll know when we're done because we're out of budget. But we started out with 15 animators, and as far as I know it's now down to Dave. So he's still compositing it and putting it together and creating and taking stuff that other animators did and turning them into Dave McKean things in ways that boggle the mind.
How would you describe the look of the film?
Gaiman: It's both the creepiest thing you've ever seen and one of the prettiest things you've ever seen on screen. And it doesn't look like anything anyone else has done. I mean, that's the thing that I just love about it.
Besides the BBC production of your script Neverwhere, is MirrorMask the first thing you've written to come to the screen?
Gaiman: I guess. I mean, I did my Babylon 5 episode, and that came to the screen. And I did [the translation of] Princess Mononoke, of course. I just did the English script. And my own film, A Short Film About John Bolton. I should mention here, that will be released in December by Nu Video, direct to DVD. With loads of cool stuff on it.
Was that your first directing effort?
Gaiman: Yeah. That was my thing that I did to find out if I liked directing or not.
And did you?
Gaiman: I liked being a director. I didn't know if it would be something I'd like. There are things I'm good at, like writing stories. And there are things I'm crap at, like putting up shelves. And I really needed to know before saying yes to Death or not whether directing a movie was something that was more like writing a book or more like putting up shelves.
Actually, what I loved was the power of "because I say so," which was the thing that was most frustrating with Neverwhere. I'd say, "It's a giant boar." They'd say, "Well, we've got a bull and nobody will ever notice." And I'd say, "Everybody will notice. It will be stupid." And they would say, "Sorry, you're just the writer."
It must be quite different from writing novels, where you have total control.
Gaiman: Absolutely. If you want to put somebody in a red shirt, you just put them in a red shirt. And they're in a red shirt because you said so.
Did you have any more control as a writer on MirrorMask?
Gaiman: What I love about MirrorMask is, it's my dialogue and stuff, but it's Dave's. It's our story, but in that case it's giving something to Dave and getting something that you never expected back, which, over the years doing stuff like [the graphic novel] Mr. Punch, I'm very used to. But it still amazes me.
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