I have become addicted to the new HBO series Carnivale. It has an intensity and visual style unlike anything i have seen on television before. I specify on television because i have 'seen' the style before. In my head, when reading American Gods.

After each episode the first thing that comes to mind is this book. I feel so strongly about this that i signed up for this message board just to make this post.

If American Gods has a future as a cinematic production, i can only hope that it is done by the production company responsible for this series.

I found a good fansite (typically more informative than the official) for the show http://www.carnivale.org/

It's certainly possible. HBO has done some great intense series and shows, (Carnivale, Oz, The Sopranos, etc.), and could be one of the best chances for this to be done right. If you had the right people in charge of it, it would be very doable.

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James

Larger than life is the perfect size

I'm with you on that. I've been watching Carnivale and the more I watch it the more I like it. A group like that could do a good job with American Gods.

I have mixed feeling over the idea of AG being made into a TV mini series. On the one hand I would love to see the characters of this book pro-trade in another medium, but for the most part I tend to be generally disappointed with what happens when someone tries to take a great book to the medium of TV, of Film. because in the end something ends up getting dropped from the store to make it fit with in a less than antiquate amount of time

I've only seen the first two episodes of Carnivale (it just started over here), but I agree that the mood reminded me of AG.

Well, the rules of the written word are different than those of movies or TV, so things do have to change. A mini-series will never replace the books, but with enough effort it could sit side-by-side with the book nicely.

Carnavale is a bit of a one trick pony. And neil couldnt even get neverwhere a far superior story to AG off the ground as a movie feature or american TV series what makes you think AG would be different?

True, but the thing with "Neverwhere" is that it is VERY Brittish. It's difficult to get an American audience to laugh at London Underground puns.

i wasn't too impressed by the first few eps of Carnivale... but that was 'cause i'd seen the ideas elsewhere. it felt Neilish

If it must go to film, I would rather see American Gods as a movie than a miniseries. Even if they are not, movies seem more official and important, and miniseries makes it sound like they weren't able to get the support to make it film. And I dislike the chopped up feal, American Gods is a book with a good flow, and I would hate to see it severed into little pieces. Actually, I would hate to see it become a movie at all, because they woould have to cut stuff, and there is nothing I could bear to lose. Good books are best as good books, not movies. The movie can never live up.

I'm not so sure about the a mini-series. It seems difficult to capture American Gods in visual form. I'd prefer to have a graphic novel instead, something like Neverwhere (made by Vertigo).

That could actually work. I haven't seen Carnivale, but HBO does tend to make good tv, and with the right director, it could be better than a movie, seeing as more screentime would mean less cutting of the good bits. However, it is a risk to take, it would require great actors, and a great director as mentioned above. Besides that, I'm leaning more towards mini tv-series instead of movie. I don't think a movie would be able to do the book justice with such limited time (ca one and a half - two hours).

Still, I don't see a need to film the book, and think I prefer leaving it be..

While I agree with the concept that movies always prove weaker than the literature from which they are based, I must also state that film is a very different medium, with a very different modus operandi. And after watching MirrorMask, I believe strongly that Neil Gaiman's work can indeed prove a powerful fuel to an audio-visual performance.

The thing about a movie is that it deludes some of the power of personal imagination-- the certain look of a character, the certain intonation of voice. These come from the imaginations of the reader, which have their own knowledge base. Perhaps, for instance, Wednesday (the character from AG) sounds like someone's Uncle Buck, while Shadow looks like that guy down the street that busks for a few bucks.

With a movie, this personal detail is lost at the cost of showing something that can enter into a collective unconsciousness. Iconography often does this to literature (think: the way that Jesus now has an almost universal 'look') and it brings about a different beast.

It is, however, possible to bring about a different-though-powerful world through film. As stated before, MirrorMask did that for me, as do a host of other films by various writers and directors. Such films as Lord of the Rings, NightWatch, and (most belovedly by me) MirrorMask prove that there can be a world of rich, beautiful imagination even when the person is "given" the variables.

Think of the artwork of Salvidor Dali: the richness (and perhaps chaos) of his artwork made it possible to simply STARE at his artwork and be entangled in a world where all the variables were indeed given to you, but you didn't quite see the same thing every time you looked. And this was captured on a stationary image!

In the end, I think if you have people devoted to the work, who are intelligent and care enough about the work, people who are mature enough and bold enough to live in the world of childlike imagination, can definitely create an audio-visual experience that, while not necessarily any better or worse than the literary original, can be an experience in their own right.

In reality, I think miniseries have much more freedom. With a movie, you can extend your time frame up to- at very best- about 3 and a half hours. A miniseries has the freedom of up to about 12 hours of recording potential, including commercials.

You may lose the funding that a feature-length film can garner, and you may lose the flow, but AG contains far too many precious moments that would be shaved and transmuted to fit the medium of film, and would be much better preserved in a longer, but periodical form.

I like the idea - if they've got the right budget for it. American Gods is pretty epic and it definitely shouldn't lack the effects and an outstanding cast.
I think I'd rather see AG as a mini-series rather than a movie - that way none of the important details would be left out.

I only know Six Feet Under by HBO so far, and I was totally addicted to that. Though you guys now have me interested in Carnivale

After reading American Gods again last year I've been thinking about this very idea ever since!
I do agree that the apatation of books for TV & film is an extremely tricky task...but it CAN work, thus widening the reading audience & breathing new life in to a text that might have passed people by.
American Gods would NEVER work as a film. There's simply too much to fit in to even a 3, 3 1/2 hour timescale. But as a TV series it would be perfect. It doesn't even have to be a "miniseries", it could easily run for longer that that. Yes the book flows incredibly well, but it IS broken in to sections of sorts, with the historical interludes charting various people's (& their gods') journeys to America. I'd love to see these sections expanded on visually - you could easily devote a whole episode to each of them.
& I do think HBO could handle American Gods. There are scenes in this book that would really stretch the visual confinements of TV in new, amazing ways. HBO produced Angels In America & while I thought some of the acting was well dodgy, visually it was awesome.
& because I've been thinking about this THAT MUCH, I have a dream that American Gods should be written by Neil Gaiman & Alan Ball, Christian Bale should play Shadow, & Tori Amos should play Easter.

I think American Gods would definitely work as an HBO mini series. I see the mood and atmosphere of it as something similar to Carnivale or the movie "The Green Mile".

I think that "American Gods" is excellent material for a HBO production. The book is too lengthy to be transformed in a movie script (but yeah, after "Lord of Rings" everything is possible, even a good version of "War and Peace").

HBO has done excellent works (like Rome, True Love, Mandrake) but they lack a "mystery series" like AXN Lost.