'American Gods' Season 2 Update: Cast Welcomes New Showrunner; What His Entrance Means for the Season 1 Cliffhanger
Despite the major shakeup on and off camera, "American Gods" season 2 is still happening, and Jesse Alexander was tapped to take on the showrunner role.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alexander is taking over for Bryan Fuller and Michael Green who left the series over creative differences with FremantleMedia as well as some issues with the budget.
The "American Gods" season 2 showrunner has worked with Fuller on "Hannibal." He is also known for his work on "Star Trek: Discovery," "Lost," "Alias," and "Heroes."
Alexander will directly work with Neil Gaiman, the author of the novel the show was based in, who is stepping up to the showrunner role as well after the original showrunners left. In a statement by the author to THR, he mentioned that he was "thrilled" that Jesse is the new director.
Gaiman continued, "He loves and understands the book, he loves and understands the TV series and he's dedicated to making future seasons of 'American Gods' as good and as beautiful and as unique as they can be. Shadow's journey is going to take him, and Mr. Wednesday, and the New Gods and the Old, to some very strange places. I'm glad that we, and the cast and crew, will have Jesse shepherding us on the way."
The cast of the show including Ricky Whittle, who plays Shadow Moon, took to Twitter to welcome Alexander to the family.
The abovementioned publication says that before Fuller and Green exited the show, they already wrote the first six episodes of the new season.
However, the site says Fremantle is not very keen on using their scripts and will instead start from scratch with Alexander. While this might worry fans who loved the work of the duo in the first season of "American Gods," THR notes that Gaiman was also not on board with where Fuller and Green wanted to take the show for season 2.
He reportedly felt that their concept was not a straight adaptation of the book, and to remedy this, he wanted a showrunner to adapt the novel faithfully, which could mean ignoring the cliffhanger from the first season.
The budget for "American Gods" season 2 is $9 million per episode, as per sources that spoke to THR. Fuller and Green wanted more after the first season went $30 million over budget. Because of the delay caused by the showrunner search and the budget, the episode count for the new season is expected to take a hit although Starz has not announced how many installments the new season will have anyway.
"American Gods" season 2 was set to return in January next year, but it looks like this is no longer the case.
