After much deliberation and back and forth on the matter, Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed fantasy novel American Gods is on its way to the small screen courtesy of Starz. Hannibal alum David Slade is primed to direct the pilot episode before shifting gears to executive produce – where he’ll join Gaiman himself – and overseeing the entire process as showrunner is Bryan Fuller.
With the adaptation beginning to pick up some momentum, the producer – who is also nudging an Amazing Stories remake closer to TV – touched base on the topic of American Gods, its epic scope, and how it is currently being pitched as a Marvel-styled shared universe, bringing numerous deities from across world religion under one umbrella.
First up, the topic of the writing room. In dealing with religion, Fuller acknowledged that the show’s narrative may rub up some viewers the wrong way, but he remains fully committed to its challenging, thought-provoking nature.
There’s conversations in the writer’s room that we are having on this show that I’ve never had in a writer’s room before, because we’re actually given the ability to talk about fate and belief, and the rules which we use to navigate society being challenged in a fashion that is not anti-religion, but not necessarily letting religion off the hook entirely…
Then, the real kicker. While discussing the finer elements of world-building when it comes to Gaiman’s literary work, Fuller noted that by designing American Gods as a shared universe, it could potentially facilitate the launch of different spinoff series under the one roof.
What we’re looking at with American Gods is developing a Marvel Universe, not with superheroes but with gods. As detailed and integrated as the Marvel Universe is, and doing that with deities is something that excited all of us…In success we may have spin-offs of American Gods that follow lesser gods in greater detail than you might in the main series, but there’s all sorts of potential for this show that we’re very excited about and I hope the audience is as enthusiastic as we are so we can bring those dreams to fruition.
Appropriately big plans, then, for what is no doubt a sprawling and cherished novel by Gaiman. But only time will tell whether American Gods has the legs to seed an entire universe when it premieres on Starz in 2017.