Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates, TV | Tagged: american gods, anansi boys, neil gaiman

Neil Gaiman Updates On American Gods' New TV Deal, Plus Anansi Boys Headed For BBC Adaptation

Neil Gaiman has taken to his official website to give some updates on the just announced new deal to bring his American Gods to TV, and also adds that the spinoff novel Anansi Boys is also headed for the small screen.

First, he says that American Gods is still in the very early stages:

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.

He also hints that things weren't going so smoothly at HBO, but reassures that it's actually some of the same people who were working on it over there that have picked up the rights now:

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.

Meanwhile, American Gods spinoff Anansi Boys, about the two sons of the Mr. Nancy character, is also headed for TV, on the BBC, but details on that are vague as well at this point:

Other TV news also came to fruition today, although I do not have anywhere to link you to, so you will have to take my word for it: Anansi Boys is going to be made into a TV miniseries in the UK, by RED, for the BBC.

The difference between the two seems to be that the plan for American Gods is still the same as before – it'll be an ongoing series which will need to tell stories beyond the book, while Anansi Boys will be faithful to the book itself and no further:

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.

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