TV
Starz Has Officially Pulled the Plug on “American Gods” After Three Seasons
It’s been a while since we’ve reported on the Starz series “American Gods,” with the show’s third season premiering earlier this year after a nearly two-year hiatus. The ratings for the third season, which just wrapped up this month, haven’t been very strong, so it should come as no big surprise that Starz has made the decision to not order up a fourth season.
“Everyone at Starz is grateful to the dedicated cast and crew, and our partners at Fremantle who brought author and executive producer Neil Gaiman’s ever-relevant story to life that speaks to the cultural climate of our country,” a Starz spokesperson told Deadline today.
Deadline also notes, “We hear there are discussions about wrapping up the Toronto-themed series to align with Gaiman’s 2001 novel as either an event series or a TV movie. However, based on the fact American Gods has seen double-digit ratings declines from season to season, any hopes of a continuation might be more smoke than fire from the premium cabler.”
Based on Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel, “American Gods” was originally developed by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, premiering in 2017. While Fuller and Green were the showrunners for that first season, Jesse Alexander took over for Season 2 and then Charles H. Eglee for Season 3.
The storyline for the series “posits 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.”
Himesh Patel (Tenet, Don’t Look Up) will star opposite Danielle Deadwyler (The Woman in the Yard) in Ryan Coogler’s reboot of “The X-Files“, which has wrapped filming on the pilot.
Patel confirmed the news in a chat with The Direct, while reiterating that he and Deadwyler play new characters.
“I don’t want to say anything that’s going to get me disappeared. Needless to say, myself and Danielle Deadwyler are playing completely new characters, and we just wrapped on the pilot. If we get to do more… we’ll see where we go from there,” Patel said.
That last sentence is noteworthy, as Patel is reminding that Hulu has only ordered the pilot so far. A full series order has yet to be greenlit.
It’s a good reminder, considering that Hulu also ordered a pilot for the “Buffy: New Sunnydale” reboot that was filmed and delivered earlier this year, only for the streamer to send shockwaves when it opted not to move forward with the series.
As for “The X-Files” pilot, Sinners filmmaker Ryan Coogler writes and directs the pilot. Jennifer Yale (“The Copenhagen Test”) serves as showrunner.
Himesh Patel and Danielle Deadwyler play two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents who form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.
Patel and Deadwyler previously co-starred together on “Station Eleven.”
Other actors who have signed on for guest roles include Amy Madigan, Steve Buscemi, Ben Foster, Devery Jacobs, Lochlyn Munro, Tantoo Cardinal, Joel D. Montgrand, and Sofia Grace Clifton.
“The X-Files” originally ran for nine seasons between 1993 and 2002, with two additional seasons arriving in 2016 and 2018. 218 episodes were produced in total, along with two feature films: 1998’s The X-Files: Fight the Future and 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
Himesh Patel in “Station Eleven”
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