Tonal and story shifts on tap for Season 2 of American Gods
If Neil Gaiman were writing a horror story about the Toronto showrunner curse, he knows exactly what it needs.
“I do think that there’s frankly not enough human sacrifice,” he jokes.
The truth is that while Toronto productions are fuelling some of the hottest science fiction, comic and fantasybased TV shows going right now with creations like The Handmaid’s Tale, Star Trek: Discovery, American Gods, The Umbrella Academy now on offer and The Boys still to come, there have been reports about creative shuffles behind the scenes and at the top of these series.
A lot of stems from Bryan Fuller. The man behind shows like Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, who got his start on Star Trek, has executive-producer credits on Star Trek Discovery and American Gods, but both shows have shuffled showrunners from Season 1 and 2, and undertaken tonal and story shifts in their second seasons.
“I always like to say that Bryan (Fuller) and Michael (Green) wanted to do the god of weather, and then they went down to Bermuda Triangle to figure it out and they never came back,” jokes American Gods’ Ian McShane.
“I wanted Bryan and Michael to stay,” says Gaiman. “There was a point where I read in the Hollywood Reporter that said they had six finished scripts that Gaiman insisted on throwing away. No they didn’t, there was one finished script, and a couple of outlines had come in. And we were all going, ‘Where is this going exactly, because I’m a bit lost.’ It was much more like, plot over here, w they had their ideas for the characters, which was great, but they weren’t really following Shadow’s story.”
There have w also been reports that Season 2 showrunner Jesse Alexander was also marginalized r as filming went on, and now the cast is rallying around Christopher Byrne, who is reportedly the reason A for the visual continuity in Season 2, which remains as gorgeous as Season w 1.
“Television shows are hard to shoot. This one was difficult to shoot, for many reasons,” said Pablo Schreiber, who plays Mad w Sweeney on the show. “Season 1 was very difficult to shoot. Second season, there was a shakeup, there were different writers, there was a bit of a void in terms of where the words were coming from.
“But the thing that I really am proud of when I look and watch the season now, is how similar it looks to Season 1, the continuity, especially visually, which we can trace back to Chris Byrne, who was a second unit director in the first season.”