According to reports, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is currently in talks to star in the forthcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic book series, The Sandman.

The project has been in development for several years. But the latest iteration, with David S. Goyer attached, seems to be gaining traction at Warner Bros.

Talking with MTV recently, Gaiman revealed that previous talks had stalled when the studio expressed concerns about the dark material and the financial risk. But things are different now, thanks to Christopher Nolan’s take on a certain Caped Crusader. Gaiman said, “What tended to happen a lot in the ’90s was the point where Warner would get relatively close to making a Sandman movie, and then somebody would get realistic about the fact that the film would not be PG-13. And that it would be incredibly big and expensive, and it would never really be made, or the sequence of films that you would need to make Sandman would never get made. I think things like the Dark Knight films kind of changed that—just how big and dark you could get.”

There is another reason to believe that the movie may be produced. Gaiman added, “When I used to go to meetings at [WB], the top execs there didn’t know who or what Sandman was, and they weren’t really interested. But the nervous juniors who would bring me the bottles of water when I arrived and would get me to sign their comics on the way out—they knew. They are now running the studios.”

It’s currently unclear whether Gordon-Levitt would portray the lead character, Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams. But it’s too soon to get excited. The project is reportedly in the early development stage, where it’s got stuck many times before.