The television adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is now almost a month away – and its creator Bryan Fuller has tweeted posters of the characters. Fans of the show can see Mr Wednesday, Bilquis, Mr World et al., behind a neon-lit OMG, which is a joke, because that means “Oh my God” and these guys are, like, actually gods?
(UPDATE 29 March: Amazon Prime Video, which is screening American Gods in the UK, has removed the OMG and replaced it with a more literal "American Gods". It's not a vast improvement.)
Anyway, there they are, as are the cast, led by Ricky Whittle of Hollyoaks fame, who plays Shadow. (Gaiman, who is an executive producer on the show, approved the choice, saying Whittle’s "auditions were remarkable.") Other cast members include Kristin Chenoweth, as Easter, and Emily Browning, who played Violet Baudelaire in the film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as Laura Moon. Ian McShane, who will always be known in the UK as “Lovejoy,” plays con man Mr Wednesday.
Created by Pushing Daisies and Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller for US channel Starz, American Gods will be screening in the UK on Amazon Prime.
For fans of the book, the prospect provokes a mix of hope and fear. Hope – that it will be as good as Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Fear – that it will be as bad as The Golden Compass.
The first images are not entirely reassuring. American Gods is a dark, ambiguous novel about a country run through with violence – yet these posters have a breezy, almost cheesy air, complete with chirpy taglines. For example, Czernobog is “The God of Evil”, whereas Easter is “The Goddess of Spring”. None of this is wrong, exactly, but in a book where the characters are never far from caricature, it does raise concerns.
Still, you never can tell. Speaking to me in December last year, Gaiman said: “It'll be really interesting to see whether anybody watches the TV version. I really hope they do because I'm proud of so much of it.” Let’s hope the bits he’s proud of are the bits that matter.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
