At long last!

We have been waiting to see who would fill the roles of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Ricky Whittle, formerly of The 100, has been chosen to play Shadow Moon, the man who must choose a side in the war between the old pantheons of the traditional gods and the newer pantheon with gods of consumerism and social media.

The team will enter production this coming April, and Gaiman could not be more proud:

“I’m thrilled that Ricky has been cast as Shadow. His auditions were remarkable. The process of taking a world out of the pages of a book, and putting it onto the screen has begun. American Gods is, at its heart, a book about immigrants, and it seems perfectly appropriate that Shadow will, like so much else, be Coming to America. I’m delighted Ricky will get to embody Shadow. Now the fun starts.”

Fun indeed! For those of you who have not read Gaiman’s American Gods, the story is about “a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.”

As well as being beloved by pretty much everyone who reads it, Gaiman’s novel has also won the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Awards.

The showrunners, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, have said how they “are lucky to have found Ricky” and want to assure fans that he will have “every bit of the heart of the character they fell in love with” when they first picked up the book.

This project has been on the back burner of our minds for a while, but it looks like everyone’s been hard at work making it happen. And it’s FINALLY HERE!

Mark your calendars and pick a side!