Things have gone great for the Starz TV series adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods thus far. The show premiered this past April to critical acclaim, and within a couple of weeks of debuting a season two had been given the greenlight. The complete first season arrived on Blu-ray and DVD last month, and season two is expected to arrive sometime next year.
But things weren’t always so good with American Gods. The series was in development for many years, including at HBO, who ultimately decided to pass on it before the project eventually landed at Starz the following year. Just as things got much better then, it was only a matter of time before some bad news. And today, that bad news arrives at our doors. It’s being reported that creators and showrunners Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) have decided to depart from the series.
Why Fuller and Green decided to exit American Gods is not yet clear. According to THR’s Live Feed, the duo may have had some creative differences with production company FremantleMedia over the show’s budget, which is understandably growing larger.
This wouldn’t be a shock at all. It happens all the time. Creatives naturally need a certain budget to bring their vision to life, and sometimes studios don’t want to commit the amount of coin they desire. And so they either come to an agreement, or go their separate ways. Sunrise, sunset. Sometimes it doesn’t end up being a big deal. Sometimes losing that creative talent can be highly damaging. Unfortunately, if this is the case with this particular situation, an agreement could not be reached and we’ll have to wait and see how things play out.
Deadline, on the other hand, says it may have been because Fuller and Green are so tremendously busy. After Hannibal was canceled and Fuller moved on to this project, he also created and became showrunner of another high-profile TV series: Star Trek: Discovery—a dream job for him. But that ended up not working out and he was forced to step down as Discovery showrunner (while still remaining an executive producer). But that didn’t stop him for lining up new projects, as he is currently working on a reboot of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories for Apple.
Green had a crazy good 2017, having not only American Gods but also writing credits on Logan, Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049 and two of its prequel shorts, “2036: Nexus Dawn” and “2048: Nowhere to Run,” and finally the recent Murder on the Orient Express. He’s also busy with other projects, currently developing another TV series adaptation of a beloved property that’s traveled a long road, the Brian K. Vaughan comic Y: The Last Man over at FX, and a superhero show set up at Netflix titled Raising Dion.
A showrunner replacement (or replacements) for Fuller and Green has not yet been chosen. Deadline says Gaiman could possibly become co-showrunner, but he too is a busy man. Gaiman is acting as showrunner on Amazon’s Good Omens, an adaptation of Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.
Click right here for much more on American Gods, including trailers and episodes of the Geeks of Doom’s American Gods podcast The Dominant Paradigm.
[Source: Live Feed, Deadline]
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I really hope this doesn’t negatively affect the show. I binge-watched “American Gods” a few weeks ago and was blown away by how good it is. And I didn’t even like the novel all that much. Great show. Hoping it stays great.
Comment by Hugomarink — November 30, 2017 @ 5:35 pm