Nearly two years after development began on the Starz television series based on Neil Gaiman’s contemporary fantasy novel American Gods, production has officially commenced on the ten episode first season.
Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) and Michael Green (The River) are writing and serving as the showrunners, with David Slade (HARD CANDY, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) directing the pilot and additional episodes. The plot centers on
a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
It has previously been announced that the series will star Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday / the Norse god Odin; Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon; Emily Browning as Shadow’s wife, Laura Moon; Sean Harris as down-on-his-luck leprechaun Mad Sweeney; Yetide Badaki as goddess of love Bilquis; Bruce Langley as New God Technical Boy; Crispin Glover as New Gods coalition leader Mr. World; and Jonathan Tucker as Shadow’s confidante Low Key Lyesmith.
Joing them are Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya, “the eldest of three sisters who watch over the constellations, guarding against horrors forgotten by modern man”; Peter Stormare as Slavic god of darkness and evil Czernobog; Chris Obi as Egyptian god of the death Anubis; and Mousa Kraish as The Jinn, “a mythical creature of the fire who understands a person’s deepest desires better than they do.”
I’m not familiar with the source material, but I am very intrigued by the sound of this series, and they have gathered a pretty incredible cast for it.
Filming on American Gods will be taking place in Toronto, Canada and locations across the United States.