«American Gods» is an American fantasy drama television series based on Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel of the same name.
Let’s find out more about the series!
- American Gods is an American fantasy drama television series.
- It is based on Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel of the same name.
- It was developed by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green for the premium cable network Starz.
- Produced by Fremantle North America and distributed by Lionsgate Television, the first season premiered on April 30, 2017.
- Fuller and Green served as the showrunners for the first season and were replaced by Jesse Alexander for the second season.
- Charles H. Eglee served as showrunner for the third season.
- Gaiman served as an executive producer.
- Ricky Whittle plays the series’ lead Shadow Moon, who meets a strange man named Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane) after being released from prison and soon becomes embroiled in a large-scale conflict between the Old Gods and the New Gods, who grow stronger each day.
- In May 2017, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on March 10, 2019.
- The following week, Starz renewed American Gods for the third season, which premiered on January 10, 2021.
- In March 2021, the series was canceled after three seasons.
- The series received praise for its visual style and acting and received two nominations at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Main Title Design and Outstanding Special Visual Effects.
- It also received three nominations at the 8th Critics’ Choice Television Awards, including Best Drama Series, Best Actor in a Drama Series for McShane, and Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Gillian Anderson.
- Fuller stated that he wanted the Old Gods to be portrayed as gritty and rustic to “demonstrate the well-worn aspects of their religion and the consequences of going without faith for so long”, while the New Gods are portrayed as slick and updated with their technology to illuminate “how valuable and pertinent they are, in their own religions.”
- In 2011, American Gods author Neil Gaiman stated at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that HBO had expressed an interest in adapting the novel into a television series.
- In March 2013, Gaiman spoke of the project’s progress at the Cambridge International Student Film Festival, and confirmed that the prospective series’ opening episode would “contain new elements and details” while still remaining “a lot like the opening chapters of the book”.
- He also commented that the book would only make up the first two seasons of the show and that he was still working on the pilot script, as his first script was not close enough to his book for HBO’s satisfaction.
- n November 2013, Gaiman announced on Reddit that the TV series was still in the works but no longer at HBO.
- In 2014, HBO’s president of programming Michael Lombardo revealed that the project had been abandoned because they could not get the script right: “We tried three different writers, we put a lot of effort into it. Some things just don’t happen”.
- In February 2014, Fremantle Media acquired the rights to adapt the novel as a fantasy drama series.
- In July 2014, it was announced that Starz would be developing the series with Bryan Fuller and Michael Green.
- Fuller stated that the series would be “[following] the events of the books but expanding those events, and expanding the point of view to go above and beyond Shadow and Wednesday”.
- Permission has been given for the series to incorporate elements from the book’s companion, Anansi Boys.
- Fuller also confirmed that Gaiman is “very involved” with the production and expressed his hope that Gaiman would write an episode himself.
- On June 16, 2015, Starz officially announced that it had greenlit the series.
- During an interview with Neil Gaiman on June 24, 2016, he discussed plans for future seasons of the show beyond the first, should it be continued, and noting that the first season only covers the first third of the novel.
- Gaiman stated in an interview in October 2018 that the plan was to make five seasons of the series.
- The series was originally picked up by HBO with Tom Hanks as producer.
- Season 1 originally had 10 episodes, but after seeing the cuts for episodes 3 and 4, the producers decided to merge them into one single episode and then use the cliffhanger for the second to last episode as the season finale, then using parts of the original season finale through the whole season. Hence making the season 8 episodes long.
- Nicolas Cage was approached to play the role of Mr Wednesday but turned it down, despite liking the script. He cited the commitment of doing a TV show as the main reason for turning it down.
- Gillian Anderson and Kristin Chenoweth choose not to return to the show in season 2 in solidarity with creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green after they were fired. Anderson was replaced by Kahyun Kim and the role renamed New Media, and Chenoweth’s role as Easter was simply not mentioned again.
- Neil Gaiman, author of the novel on which this series is based, describes the series this way: “it takes the story of the book, turns it upside down, shakes it, reconfigures it, and makes it many things, including funnier, more televisual and broader in scope.”
- The whole Laura backstory wasn’t in the book, it was created by the creators of the show to develop more the lead female character. In fact, Emily Browning was directly presented with the script for the Laura centered episode when offered the role.
- This is Bryan Fuller’s first series to write since Hannibal (2013).
- Actor Orlando Jones received a consulting producer on the second season because, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “after some actors, including star Ian McShane (Mr. Wednesday), began taking passes at improving dialogue, the production was forced to enlist Jones as a writer on the series so a member of the WGA would be credited with writing instead of having actors violating guild rules”.
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