Neil Gaiman just announced that he has been working to adapt his novel Anansi Boys into an Amazon show. Gaiman teased in June that he was working on a project that he hadn’t talked about yet, and this show announcement proves to be the big reveal. Audiences who have read American Gods or seen the Starz adaptation of the novel will recognize the name Anansi, but if they haven’t read Anansi Boys, they might be in for some surprises.
This latest announcement comes quick on the heels of Gaiman's late June 2021 revelation that his partnership with Amazon will be providing a season 2 for Good Omens, despite the story it was based on not having a sequel. After three seasons, the American Gods TV series was canceled by Starz. However, both Neil Gaiman and the production company behind the show, Fremantle, have remained optimistic that the story will continue elsewhere. With Amazon showing commitment to their partnership with Gaiman and facilitating faithful adaptations of his work while keeping him in control, it seems increasingly likely that they may try to pick up the rights for a return of Shadow Moon.
Anansi Boys has a complex history behind its creation, but it was released in 2005, four years after American Gods’ 2001 release. In 2006 it won several awards including the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Despite being nominated for the Hugo award, Neil Gaiman withdrew the work from consideration. He explained that he felt that, having three Hugos already, it was better to consider new authors for the award, and that he didn’t feel the work had enough science fiction elements to be considered, as it was closer to fantasy.
A History Of The Anansi Boys: What Is It About?
The idea for Anansi Boys first came about in 1996. Neil Gaiman was working with Sir Lenny Henry on the TV show Neverwhere, which he later adapted into his book of the same name. During a conversation, Lenny Henry pointed out that people like him never got to star in horror films and were always cast as a friend of the hero who gets killed off (an issue that Jordan Peele has worked to rectify more recently). Realizing that Henry was right, Gaiman set out to write a horror movie that Henry could star in. The script didn’t work out and the project was abandoned, but in 2002 his editor pushed him to explore the idea as a novel, and Anansi Boys as it is known today came to be.
Gaiman describes the novel as “probably a magical-horror-thriller-ghost-romantic-comedy-family-epic, although that leaves out the detective bits and much of the food.” The book opens as Charles Nancy (nicknamed “Fat Charlie” by his father) learns that his father, Mr. Nancy, has died in Florida while singing karaoke. After the funeral, it is revealed to Charlie that his father was in fact an incarnation of the West African trickster god Anansi. He also learns that he has a twin brother he has never met. This twin, Spider, received all of Anansi’s divine powers and arrives on Charlie’s doorstep a short time later intent on showing his brother a good time.
Is Anansi Boys A Sequel To American Gods?
Fans of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods will recognize the names Anansi and Mr. Nancy from that book, or from Orlando Jones’ portrayal of the character in the Starz adaptation. The character in both American Gods and Anansi Boys is, for all intents and purposes, the same person. However, the book is not technically a sequel or a prequel, although Gaiman has said “I imagine it's set in the same world as American Gods,” as well as acknowledging that Stardust is set in that same world.
Gaiman originally invented the character of Mr. Nancy for his script back in 1996. When that didn’t work out and he set to writing American Gods, he borrowed the character to appear in his new book without keeping all of the original trappings of the story. When his editor persuaded him to write the full novel Anansi Boys, he revisited the original idea and crafted a story that remained independent of American Gods, while still existing around some of the same rules and ideas.
Who is Working On the Show?
Anansi Boys will be produced by two production companies, Endor and Red, who have been interested in adapting the novel for around a decade. Lenny Henry, who helped spawn the original idea, is attached to write alongside other writers Kara Smith (Apple Tree House), Racheal Ofori (What Death Leaves Behind), Arvind Ethan David (While We Breathe, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - Producer), and Gaiman himself who will write the first and final episodes. Douglas Mackinnon (Good Omens, Doctor Who, Sherlock) will be Gaiman’s co-showrunner and Paul Frift (Good Omens, Deep State, Doctor Who) will produce. Finally, Hannelle M. Culpepper (Picard) will direct.
Casting for the show is currently unannounced, but will begin to be revealed soon. Gaiman has vaguely teased one cast member as someone that has appeared at a public event with him in the past five years, is a huge fan of Anansi Boys, and was the person Gaiman had in mind when he wrote the character. While Orlando Jones' portrayal of Mr. Nancy in American Gods was a fan favorite, he was fired from the show when season 3 showrunner, Charles Elgee, took over. Given the tensions that exist over that issue, there is no guarantee that Jones will reprise his American Gods role in Anansi Boys. As the impetus of the idea and the voice behind the original audiobook, it seems possible that Lenny Henry might make an appearance in the show, possibly as Anansi himself.
Why Didn't Anansi Boys Get Made Before?
Anansi Boys is coming now because Amazon was so excited by the response to the first season of Good Omens and was eager to work with Gaiman further. Even Covid struggled to delay the show as when faced with travel restrictions that prevented them from filming all over the world as they had intended, Mackinnon found a way to film it using the largest studio in Europe, located in Edinburgh. It is now being worked on by similar crews to Good Omens at the same time (Good Omens is filming concurrently outside Glasgow).
As production companies have been interested in Anansi Boys for a decade, it might seem strange that the show was not made sooner. Amazon’s love for Good Omens was the missing link for the production companies Endor and Red, and once they were interested production work was able to begin. Gaiman had actually been made an offer for the rights to Anansi Boys by a Hollywood director more than a decade ago. However, the director wanted to do an all-white cast and Gaiman turned down the offer, intent on not whitewashing a story about a West African deity–as Gaiman put it himself: “It was going to be done properly or not at all.” It might have been a long wait for Anansi Boys, but audiences can trust that Neil Gaiman will see it done properly.