Neil Gaiman Confirms American Gods To Be Adapted To Film

[alive she cried]

Link

 

I've never read the book, and I'm not really a fan of Gaiman (from what I've read) but I know a lot of Hondians will find this interesting.

 

Neil Gaiman Confirms American Gods Is Turning Into Film.

And a supposed genius director is involved. In an exclusive interview with Digitalspy, Neil Gaiman revealed that a film adaptation of his book American Gods is in the works.

 

Gaiman revealed to Digitalspy also that a director "who has many, many Oscars" is already on board the project.

 

"I'm going to be having a meeting in LA with the people that the film rights have been sold to," he confirmed. "I'm going to be... talking to them, find out where they're going and if there's any way that I can help."

 

Gaiman described the secretive director attached to the film as "a genius".

"He fell in love with this [novel] about six or seven years ago and has not given up," explained the writer.

 

American Gods takes place in a world in which gods and mythological creatures all exist.

Everybody wants a Sandman series, even Lucifer would be amazing but this is also prett-ay, prett-ay, prett-ay, pretty good!

 

<object id="flashObj" width="550" height="356" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1"'>http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=854100781001&playerID=30407478001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAACkAQxo~,JbFjHxgqCuaKY9yGVUcO1E8B-Lb3CqVn&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com"'>http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=854100781001&playerID=30407478001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAACkAQxo~,JbFjHxgqCuaKY9yGVUcO1E8B-Lb3CqVn&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="550" height="356" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" swLiveConnect="true" allowScriptAccess="always" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>

 

Edited March 27, 2011 by alive she cried

[Thelogan]

What have you read?

[Lycaon]

Hmmm... cautiously optimistic.

[alive she cried]

What have you read?

 

Sandman vol.1. I thought it was pretty uninteresting and quite childish. It seemed to be straining to be intelligent and "different".

I have downloaded the rest of the series so as to give the next few volumes a chance, but as I've loads of stuff i expect I'll like waiting to be read, I've pushed them off for a while now.

[Iambaytor]

Sandman Vol. 1 is literally the worst thing he's ever written by a wide margin, in fact part of the reason I still haven't pressed on with Sandman was how shockingly bad volume 1 was compared to any of his stuff I'd read at the time. I'm told it gets better later and I would believe it, I just haven't gotten around to them.

[Lycaon]

Neverwhere is quite nice.

[The NZA]

Sandman = too good for some of youse.

[Iambaytor]

Sandman = too good for some of youse.

 

I fully intend to go back and check it out sometime, and if it goes like my re-trys on Transmetropolitan and Invincible it'll undoubtedly be a great read. But be honest, Preludes and Nocturnes is a pretty mediocre book. It's like somebody doing a bad Alan Moore impression and sans the part where Morpheus has that contest with Lucifer, it's only worthwhile bits are picking out all the cameos (Original Sandman, Martian Manhunter, Etrigan, Constantine, etc.) it's an okay book if you look at it as an amateur's work starting in the business but compared to everything else Gaiman has written it's pretty shit. I need to find a torrent of the whole thing and just plow through it because I'm sure it gets better later, but it's a pretty weak start and I can see why someone would be turned off by it.

[The NZA]

i mean...i guess? i really didn't think it was that awful a start, to just drop off like it was utter shit. it's still better than a great deal of forgettable vertigo stuff i've read; i guess i can see it not hooking you, but then i stopped Fables after the first arc, so there's that.

 

if it helps, its not even in the top 3 greatest arcs of that book (endless dreams was such a fantastic epilogue as well). on the other hand, like transmet: the rest of the series isn't so vastly different as to say that if you truly hated it, you're going to somehow adore what follows. i mean, it hurts my brain reading ASC calling it childish/"trying to be intelligent". id like to sit here & remind people that this book started in like 1990 for godsake, bear in mind how high the bar was at the time but even that's not a fair mark, because it ended in '96 or so, and almost 15 years later ive still got a hard time ranking many books on it's level.

[Jables]

Ehh... Your 'bear in mind' logic won't phase these guys. Tried the same thing with Xmen 1 remember?

 

Someone who's paying attention tell us: How far along do we start reading before we're missing vital establishing info? 'Cause I mean, if the series takes we can always go back and read the first stuff.

[the division of joy]

Neverwhere is quite nice.

Having recently finished this. I'd agree.

[Lycaon]

but then i stopped Fables after the first arc, so there's that.

[Iambaytor]

i mean...i guess? i really didn't think it was that awful a start, to just drop off like it was utter shit

 

A lot of it has to deal with who the writer is and the career he's built up for himself since. This is like discovering Hemingway's Sailor Moon Fan-fiction (or reading Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty series...) it's not really that bad, but it's fucking terrible for who it is. There were a lot of signs of what was to come with that series, but I literally just finished reading American Gods before starting on Sandman and the transition was jarring to say the least.

[C_U_SPACECOWBOY]

This is like discovering Hemingway's Sailor Moon Fan-fiction

 

That would be incredible.

[Iambaytor]

That would be incredible.

 

It would be amazing.

[Visitant]

I've read a lot of Gaiman and American Gods is the book i usually recommend to people who don't read him. I'm excited for it as long as he stays involved but I figure i'm in the minority on caring about this movie.

[Thelogan]

...It's like somebody doing a bad Alan Moore impression...

 

That sentence perfectly sums up Gaiman's early career. He was totally an Alan Moore wannabe (so was Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Garth Ennis, but that's beside the point), even to the point where he followed Moore's run on Miracleman and seemed to work tirelessly to emulate him.

 

I think the impact Moore had on young writers with comic book aspirations in the 80's left a pretty large crater, probably even more so with the European guys. Love him or not understand him

hate him, it's hard to ignore the innovation that came out of that guy during that decade. (Also worth mentioning that all those guys made their mark with Vertigo books (not counting the 2000 AD, which was obscure at best in the states), and Vertigo would not exist without Mr. Moore.)

 

The cool thing about Gaiman is that he eventually overcame that and became a damn fine writer in his own right (although not quite as damn fine, so did Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Garth Ennis, but that's beside the point), but it certainly took him a bit.

 

I recommend Season of Mists to anyone who's on the fence with Sandman. That was the story arc that blew me away and gave me respect for the guy, personally. If you hate that one...well. /shrug. The Wild C.A.T.S. trades are pretty cheap these days.

 

Oh yeah, so this topic is about an American Gods movie? That might be cool.

[Lycaon]

This is like discovering Hemingway's Sailor Moon Fan-fiction

 

 

That would be incredible.

 

 

It would be amazing.

 

*starts looking into ways to bring the dead back to life, to hell with the consequences*

[alive she cried]

i mean, it hurts my brain reading ASC calling it childish/"trying to be intelligent". id like to sit here & remind people that this book started in like 1990 for godsake, bear in mind how high the bar was at the time

 

Ehh... Your 'bear in mind' logic won't phase these guys. Tried the same thing with Xmen 1 remember?

 

What Skeet said, just cause there was worse shit out there at the time, doesn't make me forgive it's obvious flaws. Also 1990 is after Watchmen, V For Vendetta and Year One.

 

 

I recommend Season of Mists to anyone who's on the fence with Sandman. That was the story arc that blew me away and gave me respect for the guy, personally. If you hate that one...well. /shrug.

 

I'll check that out.

 

Link

 

Neil Gaiman's American Gods Heads To HBO

Gaiman recently revealed that an adaptation of his acclaimed novel was in the works, but it turns out it's going to be for the small screen as American Gods heads to HBO. [frick] yeah! HBO seems to be gathering more and more fantasy type shows under it's wing as Game Of Thrones debuts on Sunday, we have the news that Neil Gaiman's awesome novel American Gods will be getting similar treatment..

 

 

Deadline reports..

 

..The payweb has begun talks to acquire the Neil Gaiman novel American Gods to be developed into another fantasy series. The project was brought to HBO by Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and it was brought to them by Robert Richardson. The plan is for Richardson and Gaiman to write the pilot together.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the novel, it's great, go read it. Need a bit more? ok..

 

Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, who knows more about Shadow than is possible, warns that a storm is coming — a battle for the very soul of America . . . and they are in its direct path.

[Visitant]

I think it being a TV series works in its favor on this one. Especially with the budgets they have been giving these kind of shows nowadays.

[Keth]

Been wanting to read the book for a long time, so I should get on that. In the meantime Starz has greenlit this as a series.

 

Starz is moving ahead with its adaptation of “American Gods,” the acclaimed 2001 fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman.

According to the cable channel, the start of production will be contingent on the casting of protagonist Shadow Moon. Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal”) and Michael Green (“The River,” “Heroes”) will write the series and serve as showrunners. Gaiman is on board as executive producer of the project, which hails from FreeMantle North America.

Previously in development for HBO, “American Gods” is built on the premise that deities and figures of myth and folklore exist only because people believe in them. It follows an ex-convict named Shadow who, upon early release from prison after his wife is killed in a car crash, is hired to be the bodyguard of a mysterious con man named Wednesday. However, it’s soon revealed that Wednesday is an incarnation of All-Father Odin, who’s traveling America recruiting his fellow forgotten deities to wage an epic battle against the new American gods — manifestations of modern life and technology, like Internet, media and credit cards.

“I am thrilled, ‎scared, delighted, nervous and a ball of glorious anticipation,” Gaiman said in a statement. “The team that is going to bring the world of ‘American Gods’ to the screen has been assembled like the master criminals in a caper movie: I’m relieved and confident that my baby is in good hands. Now we finally move to the exciting business that fans have been doing for the last dozen years: casting our Shadow, our Wednesday, our Laura …”

 

Bryan Fuller's name should be promising since he is currently showrunner for Hannibal.

[Visitant]

I am going to give Hannabal another shot, since I tuned out after ep 1. As far as American Gods go?

 

...Don't fuck up one of my favorite books of all time.