American Gods, the highly anticipated new series from Starz, has addedDavid Sladeas director and executive producer. It’s been a quiet summer on theAmerican Godsfront sincethe project was given the go-ahead by the premium network in mid-June.Bryan FullerandMichael Greeneare set as showrunners, bringing their experience fromHannibalandHeroes, respectively, to usher in a proper adaptation ofNeil Gaiman’snovel.
It was Gaiman himself who broke the news that Slade would be joining the series, with a well-timed Tweet that was just barely edged out by Deadline’s own report. Slade’s addition reunites him with Fuller, since Slade helmed five episodes ofHannibalover the course of the series. Slade also brings feature film experience to the team, having directed the thrillerHard Candy, the horror film30 Days of Night, and the unfortunateThe Twilight Saga: Eclipse. That last film sent Slade to the world of TV directing, where he’s been for the last few years, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
American Godsis a modern-day mythology that finds a protagonist caught in the midst of a war among the old gods and the new.Gaiman himself will write episodes for the series.Like much of Gaiman’s work, it veers into the supernatural and the metaphysical quite often, a facet that surely has Fuller salivating. I’m hopeful that his shorthand will Slade will make for an easy production process, which has yet to get started in earnest. You can expect to see their handiwork whenAmerican Godsdebuts on Starz in 2017.
Check out Gaiman’s tweet welcoming Slade below:
Here’s the official synopsis forAmerican Gods:
The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of biblical and 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.
