Neil Gaiman Shares His Icelandic Inspiration for AMERICAN GODS in a New Doc
While we wait to see Starz' adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, we have a new doc coming that features Gaiman's journey to Iceland, which was a major inspiration for the author when he was writing the story. This is where the whole idea was sparked and what led him to write it.
Gaiman has shared the first look at the doc, which he calls American Gods: Origins. In it the author travels to Reykjavik, Iceland to discuss how he came up with the idea of American Gods. In the process, he talks about his own personal and professional history and how it lead to the moment of creating American Gods.
He explains that American Gods is a story about American culture and immigration. Part of it was inspired by his own experience of coming to the United States in 1992. He explains that one of the ways for him to understand himself and his place in this world was to write about it. So he did, and in the process, he implemented some real cool Norse Mythology and ended up writing a story about a war between Old and New Gods.
Based on the international best-selling novel by Neil Gaiman, American Gods follows Shadow Moon as he embarks on a road trip across America with the enigmatic conman Mr. Wednesday. On their journey, Shadow discovers that Mr. Wednesday is in fact one of the old gods brought to this country by settlers long ago, who warns of a war brewing between the forgotten old gods of myth and the new American Gods of money, technology and media. And as Shadow finds himself evermore deeply embroiled in this world of gods among men, he has a choice to make. Should he follow Mr. Wednesday into battle and find out more about his own mysterious past or attempt to reconcile with his recently deceased wife?
Brought to the screen by executive producers Bryan Fuller (Hannibal), Michael Green (Heroes) and Gaiman, American Gods stars Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney and Gillian Anderson as Media.
Starz has yet to announce a release date for the documentary, but American Gods debuts April 30th. Check out the trailer for the doc along with a motion poster.
Which god would you want to be caught in a storm with? #AmericanGods pic.twitter.com/KSyUzvALa9
— American Gods (@AmericanGodsSTZ) March 5, 2017