Miscasting the SANDMAN: Early Nineties Edition

Reviewing my last post on Sandman and Stone Cold, I recalled a game that my fellow comic-book fans* and I enjoyed playing in the early ‘90s, “Who would you cast in the movie?” I don’t believe anyone was planning to make a film adaptation of Sandman twenty years ago, but it wasn’t entirely improbable; the success of Keaton and Burton’s Batman had revived Hollywood’s interest in comic-book heroes, and The Crow would soon demonstrate the appeal of tragic-gothic heroes with excessive eye makeup. My inner Imp of the Perverse asked “If the Sandman movie had come out in the early ‘90s, and had starred Brian Bosworth, just how bad would it have been?” To which I mentally replied “It would depend on who else got cast in the film.” And then I wondered: just how inappropriately could one have cast the major roles in Sandman, using actors and actresses from the first half of the 1990s? Here are some thoughts:

Morpheus: Joe Pesci

“Are you saying that confronting me in my domain AMUSES you? Do I look like some sort of clown to you?” (Pause) “Well, maybe I do! But an ANGRY clown.”

Desire: Pauly Shore

“I could MAKE you want one, Buuuh-huh-uhhh-dee.”

Destruction: William Hurt

“My fleeting image appears in Scene 53 – and in every ad for the movie.”

Despair: Victoria Jackson

"My hook, it is in your heart, and your hope, it is draining away, tee-hee." 

Delirium: Mayim Bialik

“I'm having a hallucinatory episode! A Very Special hallucinatory episode."

Death: Rosie O'Donnell

“Yeah, manic pixie goth girl here. Blow me.” 

Destiny: Brian Bosworth

“I want you to…stay out of...the old…”

Yeah, I know, I'm going to Hell. At least it's under new management.

*Mainly my brother, my friend Sean, and my mother, who REALLY liked Watchmen.