'American Gods' showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green
The novel American Gods features countless mythological characters gearing up to fight an epic battle. The writer-producers of the new adaptation on Starz were determined to do justice to the book -- even if that meant constantly moving production and pushing the budget. Showrunners Michael Green and Bryan Fuller tell us why they're not worried about critics who say the show is confusing, and go into the thinking behind an especially memorable, explicit sex scene.
Showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green were more than ready to go full frontal with their new Starz series American Gods, even if not all the actors were ready to take that plunge. Green and Fuller tell us about earlier heartbreaks on broadcast shows, adapting an epic novel that had been considered un-filmable, and yes, how they finally got an actor to drop his towel. Plus an all-TV banter: the cast of Will and Grace sings and dances while Roseanne returns -- don't check your calendar -- it's the 2017 upfronts.
Photo: Author Neil Gaiman and showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green on the set of American Gods. (Starz)
Lesley Goldberg, TV news editor of the Hollywood Reporter, joins Kim Masters to discuss top entertainment news stories of the week.
It's time for a 2017 TV upfronts wrap-up. While all the broadcast networks spent the week rolling out their upcoming fall seasons to advertisers, hoping to get big bucks on ad buys, the market felt cooler than in years past, and instead of taking so many swipes at each other, networks seemed united in their fight against digital content. Even though ratings continue to decline, the TV networks want to make it clear that they're still the safest place to buy ads. Other major themes from the week include more reboots (including Will and Grace and Roxeanne) and American Idol returns, this time to ABC.
The sprawling new Starz series, American Gods, based on the 2001 Neil Gaiman novel, is packed full of characters -- some human, some mythical.
The story follows a taciturn convict named Shadow Moon, played by Ricky Whittle, who emerges from prison and immediately finds himself employed by a mysterious and mischievous man who goes only by the name Wednesday. He is played by Ian McShane.
What Wednesday wants from this arrangement, other than a driver and some muscle, isn't immediately clear. But Shadow soon finds himself engulfed in chaos and suspects Wednesday, and perhaps some of his other-worldly friends, have something to do with it.
American Gods showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green have each had a 20-year-long writing career in the industry.
Fuller got his start writing for the Star Trek: Voyager TV show and went on to create the ABC series Pushing Daisies and the NBC drama Hannibal.
Green co-wrote the screenplay for this year's mega-hit Wolverine movie, Logan, as well as the upcoming Murder on the Orient Express and Blade Runner 2049.
They first met more than a decade ago as writers on the NBC show Heroes. Fuller and Green tell us about bonding over reading each other's scripts, the heartbreaks they've endured in network television, and why they're not holding back in their TV adaptation of American Gods. And oh yes, there's an extended conversation on male full-frontal nudity on television, and why they felt it was necessary for certain scenes in their show.
