Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys series confirmed by Amazon Prime Video after Good Omens' success
The series will not be an American Gods spin-off.
Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys novel will be adapted into a six-part Amazon Prime series, the streamer has confirmed. The announcement follows confirmation of a second series of Good Omens, more than two years after its premiere.
Like the novel, the series will revolve around Mr Nancy's sons, Spider and Charlie, who were unaware his father was the West African trickster god of stories.
The god first appeared in Gaiman's American Gods novel, which was also adapted into a TV series by Amazon and US streamer Starz. In the American Gods series, Mr Nancy was played by Orlando Jones, who was dropped in season three.
It's unclear at this stage whether Jones will be reprising the role for the Anansi Boys series but Amazon reiterated in a statement the series was not a sequel nor a spin-off of American Gods, but rather a standalone story.
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Gaiman will co-showrun the series alongside Douglas Mackinnon (Good Omens). Gaiman will also be on writing duties alongside Lenny Henry and more, while Hanelle M. Culpepper is set to direct the pilot.
Speaking of the news, Gaiman said: “Anansi Boys began around 1996, from a conversation I had with Lenny Henry about writing a story that was diverse and part of the culture that we both loved.
“Anansi Boys as a TV series has been a long time coming — I first started working with Endor and Red on making it over a decade ago. We needed Amazon Prime to come on board and embrace our vision, we needed a lead director with the craft and vision of Hanelle Culpepper, we needed the creative and technical wizardry of Douglas Mackinnon (who worked out how we could push the bounds of the possible to shoot a story set all over the world in a huge studio outside Edinburgh), and we needed the rest of the amazing talents that nobody knows about yet.
"We are trying to make a new kind of show with Anansi Boys, and to break ground with it to make something that celebrates and rejoices in diversity both in front of and behind the camera. I’m so thrilled it’s happening and that people will be meeting Mr Nancy, Charlie and Spider, the Bird Woman and the rest of them.”
Filming is set to begin in Scotland this year.
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