The Sandman creator Neil Gaiman has revealed Michael Jackson had wanted to be cast as Morpheus.

Gaiman discussed the early iterations of the Netflix project in the 1990s, adapting his comic book series which ran from 1989 to 1996.

In an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Gaiman said: “By 1996, I was being taken to Warners, where the then-president of Warner Bros sat me down and told me that Michael Jackson had phoned him the day before and asked him if he could star as Morpheus in The Sandman.

He continued: “So, there was a lot of interest in this and they knew that it was one of the Crown Jewels and what did I think? And I was like, ‘Ooh.’”

In the Netflix adaptation recently released, Tom Sturridge plays Morpheus. The cast also includes Jenna Coleman and Gwendoline Christie.

In a four-star review of The Sandman, NME wrote: “Often falling back on a corny British sense of humour and slightly over-polished to a contemporary sheen, there’s a cheap whiff of Doctor Who to the earlier episodes that will put a lot of people off.

“Stick with The Sandman through its biggest excesses though and there’s enough imagination to fuel another 30 years of waiting for anything half so original to come along again.”

Meanwhile, a lawsuit against the Michael Jackson estate and Sony Music, that alleged the label had released songs by a Jackson impersonator, has been settled after eight years.