I was devastated to hear that HBO had cancelled their production for Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods‘, but with Starz picking the series up, showrunner Bryan Fuller is saying we should see it in 2016! This sounds like a win for genre fans as Starz had recently just started airing ‘Outlander’ which is another fantasy novel series adaptation. With ‘American Gods,’ the novella ‘Monarch of the Glen,’ crossover characters included in ‘Anansi Boys,’ and a book sequel in the works, there is plenty of source material for the showrunners to create an ongoing series.

Not only that, but with Bryan Fuller being the showrunner for ‘Hannibal’ and Michael Green from ‘Heroes‘ working on the show together, it seems like an ongoing series is written in the stars, pun intended. Even busy with the third season of ‘Hannibal’ and getting ‘American Gods’ put together, Fuller had time to sit down for an interview with an update on where things stand. When it comes to the new series “we are breaking the third episode” and if the plan goes off without a hitch they should start filming the first season around “mid-to-late 2015.” That means we’d see the series air in 2016.

Not soon enough if you ask me from a fan whose been wanting to see the novel come to life when it was first announced in 2011 on HBO. How does Fuller envision the show coming together?

“It’s basically the following the events of the books but expanding those events, and expanding the point of view to go above and beyond Shadow and Wednesday. In that way, as with ‘Game of Thrones,’ there are dozens of characters that you’re tracking through the events and that’s probably the biggest similarities between the worlds, in that there’s a wide variety of characters at play.”

With as many characters as we see that makes sense. The novel itself follows an ex-convict named Shadow who takes up the job of being a bodyguard for a man of mystery named Mr. Wednesday. The man turns out to be bringing together the Old Gods who currently reside in America to go to war with the new ones.

As ‘Anansi Boys’ is set in the same universe, according to Fuller, “we would be allowed to use those [characters] as well” which would allow the series to greatly expand the locations involved with this war of the Gods set in modern times.

The best part for fans of the series? Neil Gaiman is actively involved! According to Fuller, “Neil’s executive producing and he’s very involved. He’s given birth to the baby, raised to the baby, and now Michael Green and I are marrying the baby. […] So the relationship is similar in that way, where he is absolutely integral to the process and also very excited just to see it coming together in the fashion that it is.”

I’m sure it is obvious that I’m a little excited about this on.

Are you looking forward to an adaptation of ‘American Gods’ finlly seeing the light of day?

Source: Screen Rant