After years of back-and-forth and will-it-won’t-it drama, Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ is finally in for-sure-definitely no-way-it-can’t-be-real development. HBO has hovered over the property for what seemed like an eternity before ultimately passing on the Shadow, Wednesday, and the rest of the gang late last year, but it seems Starz and Fremantle took another look and decided to make a deal. Bryan Fuller and Michael Green are taking showrunner duties, having teamed-up before on ‘Heroes’ back when that show was in its prime. Fuller is currently running the increasingly popular ‘Hannibal’ over on NBC. How Fuller’s time on that show will affect ‘American Gods’ and its dozens of colorful gods hidden in plain sight, we will have to wait and see.

Here’s the novel’s description from the Starz/Fremantle press release in case you’re among the uninitiated:

The 2001 novel has been translated into over 30 languages and earned numerous accolades including Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel. The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of biblical and 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.

The novel is dark and meandering, and has enough side-plots and backstory to provide at least two seasons worth of material, so it’ll be interesting to see how Fuller and Green write the show. The series could focus on its fantastic elements — the gods (Old and New), magic, shapeshifting, dimension-shifting, etc. — or its more horrific aspects — murderers, zombies, demonic creatures — and end up being a very different program depending on that decision. Or, ideally, the showrunners will combine horror and fantasy into something fresh.

Neil Gaiman, ruler of Tumblr, co-owner of the Internet at large, writer of both ‘American Gods’ and ‘Sandman’, and all around interesting guy, had this to say in support of the showrunner selection:

When you create something like ‘American Gods,’ which attracts fans and obsessives and people who tattoo quotes from it on themselves or each other, and who all, tattooed or not, just care about it deeply, it’s really important to pick your team carefully: you don’t want to let the fans down, or the people who care and have been casting it online since the dawn of recorded history. What I love most about the team who I trust to take it out to the world, is that they are the same kind of fanatics that ’American Gods’ has attracted since the start. I haven’t actually checked Bryan Fuller or Michael Green for quote tattoos, but I would not be surprised if they have them. The people at Fremantle are the kinds of people who have copies of ‘American Gods in the bottom of their backpacks after going around the world, and who press them on their friends. And the team at Starz have been quite certain that they wanted to give Shadow, Wednesday and Laura a home since they first heard that the book was out there.I can’t wait to see what they do to bring the story to the widest possible audience able to cope with it.

Here’s to hoping Starz/Fremantle follow the novel’s lead and cast a person of mixed race as Shadow, the novel’s protagonist.

Who’ll they cast as Mr. Wednesday? We’re taking bets in the comments!