A few days ago the news came out that a new deal had been signed to bring Neil Gaiman’s American Gods to television. It had previously been under contract with HBO, but Freemantle acquired the rights and plans to bring it, as well as its spin-off Anasai Boys to the small screen. After the report came out, Neil Gaiman himself took to his website to talk about the series (which he’ll be an executive producer of) as well as its past with HBO and what to expect with Anasai Boys:
HBO had an option on American Gods for several years. It went through three different pilot scripts. HBO has a limited number of slots and, after a while, passed it to Cinemax, who are in the HBO family, who decided eventually they didn’t want to do it, and the option expired, which unfortunately meant we couldn’t work with Tom Hanks’ production company Playtone any longer, as they are exclusive to HBO. However, Stefanie Berk, who had been one of the brightest stars at Playtone, had recently moved to Freemantle, and was as determined as she had been when she was at Playtone to bring American Gods to the screen. And I was impressed by her determination. As to where you will be able to see it, who is going to be in it, who will be writing or show-running, none of these things have yet been settled. Anansi Boys is going to be made into a TV miniseries in the UK, by RED, for the BBC. Freemantle has the harder task, as they are going to have to open up American Gods into something bigger than the book. Red are just going to have to make an absolutely brilliant faithful version of Anansi Boys.
What are your thoughts on American Gods/Anansi Boys being adapted into TV? Did you read the book? Who would you cast in the adaptation? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
