It seemed for a while that it wasn’t going to happen, but a small screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods has finally been given the green light. American network Starz are turning the beloved novel into a series of unknown length, with Michael Green (Heroes) and Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) as showrunners.
Neil Gaiman is set to serve as an executive producer, no doubt ensuring it will be a faithful adaptation.
“I am thrilled, ?scared, delighted, nervous and a ball of glorious anticipation,” the author says. “The team that is going to bring the world of American Gods to the screen has been assembled like the master criminals in a caper movie: I’m relieved and confident that my baby is in good hands. Now we finally move to the exciting business that fans have been doing for the last dozen years: casting our Shadow, our Wednesday, our Laura.”
American Gods posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of biblical and mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
There’s no word on a premiere date, but Fuller is very excited about starting work on the project based on comments he made when we caught up with him recently. You can find that interview by clicking here.
