Back in November, American Gods showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green announced that they’d be leaving the critically well-regarded Starz series after the end of its first season. At the time—and in subsequent discussions—everyone involved seems to have done their best to paint the split as amicable, with Starz CEO Chris Albrecht assuring fans that the network was working to keep Green and Fuller involved with the show in some capacity as it moves into its second season.
Today, though, a new piece in The Hollywood Reporter suggests that things on the show’s set were significantly more fraught than we initially believed, with Fuller and Green battling with producers over the show’s budget, and—more surprisingly, given all the comments everyone involved have made about how deeply he was connected to the show’s development—with the author of their source material, Neil Gaiman.
Quoting anonymous sources from the show’s production, THR claims that Gaiman butted heads with Green and Fuller about the series’ direction going forward, with the author allegedly balking at decisions that would have moved the second season away from a straighter adaptation of his 2001 novel. At the same time, the showrunners were in what sounds like a running fight with production company Fremantle Media, after turning the show’s first season in $30 million over budget, and repeatedly asking for yet more funds for its second.
American Gods is taking new steps forward today, though; Jesse Alexander, who worked with Fuller on Hannibal and Star Trek: Discovery, has been officially named as its new showrunner. Meanwhile, the six scripts Green and Fuller had already written for the show’s second season are allegedly set to be tossed out, with Alexander and Gaiman returning to square one as they fight to get the series back up and running for its anticipated January 2019 return.