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In this thread, I will be discussing what supports and what goes against the most popular idea of what Jenna Coleman's secret new project could be: The Sandman.
Ever since the announcement that Jenna had a secret new show during the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show one week ago, there has been quite some discussion about what this new project should be. On Friday, in her interview for The Times, it was revealed that it is a “big-budget fantasy
project”, and the discussion has heated up even more. The most popular guess of what her new project might be, is The Sandman.
The Sandman is a comic book series by Neil Gaiman, and was published by DC Comics. A film adaptation had been planned in 2013, but was cancelled.
The Sandman is a comic book series by Neil Gaiman, and was published by DC Comics. A film adaptation had been planned in 2013, but was cancelled.
However, in June 2019, Netflix announced that it would be developing a live-action TV series based on The Sandman comic books. As with many other things, the pandemic delayed it substantially but it has had some recent major developments, with filming allegedly having started in
October this year. Now this might already be a complete dealbreaker, except that the cast for it has still not been announced. Could it be, that Jenna is part of the still unknown cast of The Sandman Netflix series?
The most important piece of evidence that makes a casting in The Sandman a real possibility, is that Jenna Coleman and Neil Gaiman started following each other on Instagram and Twitter in November. When Jenna starts a new project, she typically starts to follow the people she is
working together with. And although she has known Neil before, from Doctor Who’s Nightmare in Silver, the timing does seem rather intriguing. Neil Gaiman doesn’t follow many people at all, and those that he does follows tend to be the people he has worked with closely.
So there is reason to believe that they might be working together either now, or in the near future. The only major filming project that Neil is involved in at the moment, as far as I could find, is The Sandman. He has recently teased two new shows that, according to current
plans, would be filmed from October 2021 onwards: https://bleedingcool.com/tv/two-huge-new-neil-gaiman-tv-series-to-film-in-scotland-in-2021/
We don’t know what these two shows will be, so it is very difficult to speculate about them, and it is certainly possible for her new project to be one of those. But I think filming for them is still too
We don’t know what these two shows will be, so it is very difficult to speculate about them, and it is certainly possible for her new project to be one of those. But I think filming for them is still too
far away for them to be plausible candidates for Jenna’s new show, for her to already be mentioning it.
The Sandman fits almost all the things we DO know about Jenna’s secret new project. It is high-budget, it is fantasy. Even though Jenna doesn’t seem to like fantasy all that
The Sandman fits almost all the things we DO know about Jenna’s secret new project. It is high-budget, it is fantasy. Even though Jenna doesn’t seem to like fantasy all that
much, it is dark fantasy, and Jenna loves darker shows. It is a TV series, and Jenna seems to prefer TV shows over films. And she has a much higher reputation in the realm of TV shows than she does for films. It seems to tick all the boxes.
Almost all of them, that is. The timing is the major issue here. According to her interview for The Times, this secret new project of hers will start filming “in the new year”. We know that The Sandman has started filming in October, and even though it is likely that filming
would have been affected by the ongoing pandemic, the only ways to obtain agreement between these contradictory statements, is that The Times got the time wrong (no pun intended), that Jenna deliberately mislead them to keep it a secret, that Jenna plays a smaller character,
and didn’t have any scenes to film yet, or that she isn’t working on The Sandman after all.
It would have been possible for her to have already done some filming for her secret new project, and I would go so far as to say that there is reason to believe she has been doing some
It would have been possible for her to have already done some filming for her secret new project, and I would go so far as to say that there is reason to believe she has been doing some
filming lately. She has been seen in several unknown locations recently, and even though there are other ways to explain this, filming her new show is definitely a possibility. Even though we know of several days since The Sandman has allegedly started filming, during which she
would have been unavailable for filming, we don’t know a lot about what she did in this period, and I would say that there isn’t anything that definitively contradicts the notion that she has already started filming for her new project.
Another piece of evidence that possibly supports the idea that The Sandman is her new secret project, is her response in another recent radio interview for Loose Ends. She was asked if, after having worked on soaps, sci-fi/fantasy, historical dramas, romance, and crime shows,
there was any portion of the population that she hadn’t produced anything for yet. Jenna’s response was: “Cartoon land. I've not become a cartoon character. Maybe that's the next step”.
But another major hurdle is the question of which character she would be playing in The Sandman if this really is her secret new show. As has already been suggested by several people, Jenna does have quite a resemblance to Death from the comic books and would fit the character.
There is no other character from the comics that I know of, that more or less resmbles Jenna. So judging from appearance for now, it would seem that Death is the most likely option. However, in early 2020, Netflix released a list of the characters they would be casting for for
the series, and what kind of actor they were looking for. For the character of Death, they were looking for an actress aged 18-25 ( https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-sandman-season-1-everything-we-know-so-far-10-2020/).
Now, even though Jenna looks far younger than she is, she is still 9 years older than the upper limit that Netflix placed
Now, even though Jenna looks far younger than she is, she is still 9 years older than the upper limit that Netflix placed
on their choice of casting for Death. I think that is too much, and likely immediately disqualified Jenna from even auditioning for the role. According to the same website, there is however one character for which Jenna does meet the conditions as specified by Netflix: Anna.
She is a recurring female character, aged 30-35. What speaks against this, is that I could not really find out much about Anna, so even though she is supposed to make regular appearances, it seems like she is a rather minor character. If you have been following Jenna’s recent
career, you’ll know that she plays leading roles all the time, and doesn’t seem to be satisfied with playing a mere side character. So I also wouldn’t be sure that this is a likely role for Jenna to be playing.
So, to conclude; it is plausible that Jenna Coleman’s secret new project is The Sandman. It satisfies the conditions of being big-budget and fantasy, and it would explain why Jenna and Neil suddenly started following each other. However, the alleged time when Jenna’s new project
is supposed to start being filmed, contradicts the time when The Sandman did start to film. And it is unclear which character Jenna would even play.
If I’d have to guess, I’d say it’s probably not The Sandman, but I couldn’t tell you another show that is more likely.
If I’d have to guess, I’d say it’s probably not The Sandman, but I couldn’t tell you another show that is more likely.
