Neil Gaiman has announced on his blog that the long in development AMERICAN GODS has changed hands from HBO to FremantleMedia. While FremantleMedia are more well known for its reality TV, it’s at least positive to see some forward momentum with the title. It’s far too early to speculate about release dates or networks, but hopefully this change will be the first of many new announcements to come. For those unfamiliar with AMERICAN GODS, it tells the story of Shadow, an ex con who gets mixed up in a conflict between old gods and new gods as they struggle for dominance in this faith starved new world. Its hard to say exactly what a show based on it will look like, or how much they’ll add or change to the original story, but it certainly has an original premise.
Gaiman’s other announcement is that production company RED will be making ANANSI BOYS into a TV miniseries for the BBC. RED has a long history of making fantastic British television, with such credits as QUEER AS FOLK, CLOCKING OFF, and UNFORGIVEN, just to name a few. Anansi Boys tells the story of Fat Charlie and Spider, two brothers who are the sons of Mr. Nancy, who was an incantation of the spider god Anansi. The brothers meet after being estranged for years, because Charlie knew nothing of Spider, and Spider instantly starts to make chaos out of Fat Charlie’s life. No word yet as to when we should be expecting this project, but I’m sure more will be revealed in the near future.
This is certainly exciting news for fans of Neil Gaiman, who is known for writing the comic SANDMAN as well as several novels and books of short stories, and we’ll keep you up to date with any new developments.
