The American Gods TV series is finally happening - and according to author Neil Gaiman, it's looking "shit hot".
Gaiman told Digital Spy that he first met with showrunner Bryan Fuller in 2014 on the set of Hannibal, to discuss adapting his 2001 fantasy novel.
"I flew out to Toronto and met Bryan - we just talked about American Gods generally and he decided to come on board," the author recalled.
Two years on and the series is in production at Starz, with Gaiman telling DS that he's thrilled with Fuller's vision.
"For me, American Gods is a novel about the immigrant experience as much as it is anything else," he said. "It's about coming to America and becoming American, and what you have to give up and what you're allowed to keep...
"For Bryan, I think it's a show much more about belief... and belief is one of the engines that drives American Gods, but it's much more important, I think, in Bryan's vision.
"He and Michael Green have been writing these really powerful scripts, the casting is shit hot... and the footage that I've been seeing is also shit hot."
Not that Gaiman's seen a full episode of the adaptation yet...
"They are shooting the first three episodes at once, which is incredibly frustrating if you're me and they've now been shooting for three weeks or whatever and there's still not one complete episode," he laughed.
"But it's looking amazing. It's got that thing where the production designer and the director and Bryan all have a vision...
"It's definitely hyper-real, and it's gorgeous, and I'm so looking forward to seeing a rough cut of something... when they finish one!"
Ricky Whittle will star in American Gods as Shadow Moon, a man thrust into a conflict between Gods when his beloved wife Laura (Emily Browning) is killed in a car accident.
Ian McShane, Peter Stormare and Crispin Glover will also appear in the series, expected to premiere on Starz in early 2017.
Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories begins on Thursday (May 26) at 9pm on Sky Arts.
