Friday, June 28, 2013

HBO Plans Six Seasons of Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS (UPDATED)

Looking for another good HBO series to help fill the wait until the fourth season of Game of Thrones?

The television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel American Gods has finally been greenlit by HBO with a planned six-season run.  Empire reports that Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions will produce the series, with a $40 million budget for each season of 10 to 12 episodes.

The HBO series was first announced back in June 2011 with the same six-season structure and at the time, Gaiman commented on Twitter about one novel being stretched across six seasons.  "And for those asking, No, 6 years of AMERICAN GODS on TV doesn't mean just the 1st book. It means I need to write the 2nd now, for a start."

At the moment, there's been no word on when the American Gods sequel will be released but an article on HBOWatch back in April featured details taken from Gaiman at the Cambridge International Student Film Festival.  The first two seasons of the TV series will cover the first American Gods novel, and by that point, Gaiman hopes to have the sequel written and ready for release.  Also, the premiere episode will mirror a lot of the novel's opening chapters but will contain new elements and details.  Gaiman remarked that American Gods will debut later this year if he can get the pilot script finished in time to HBO's satisfaction.  However, the most likely scheduling date for American Gods would be after the fourth season of Boardwalk Empire ends sometime in December.

For those not familiar with the novel, it focuses on a man called Shadow that is about to be released from prison when he receives word reaches him that his wife and best friend have been killed in a car crash.  Shadow soon finds himself reluctantly working as a bodyguard for a mysterious conman called Mr. Wednesday and is soon drawn into a conflict between America's gods, old and new.

** Update as of 6/30/13 ** Neil Gaiman posted on Twitter that American Gods has not been greenlit for production, so forget about seeing the series in 2013 at least.  Fingers crossed for 2014, though.


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