Anansi Boys: Neil Gaiman novel gets Amazon mini-series adaptation

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Amazon has ordered a six-episode limited series based on Neil Gaiman's 2005 fantasy novel Anansi Boys (buy a copy at THIS LINK). Casting is already underway, with the show set to start filming in Scotland later this year. Anansi Boys will center on 

Charlie Nancy, a young man who is used to being embarrassed by his estranged father. But when his father dies, Charlie discovers that his father was Anansi: trickster god of stories. And he learns that he has a brother. Now his brother, Spider, is entering Charlie’s life, determined to make it more interesting, but also making it a lot more dangerous.

Gaiman will serve as showrunner alongside Douglas Mackinnon, who directed all six episodes of the Gaiman series Good Omens' first season. Gaiman will also be writing the Anansi Boys scripts with Lenny Henry, Arvind Ethan David, Kara Smith, and Racheal Ofori. Gaiman, Henry, and Mackinnon are executive producing the show with Hilary Bevan Jones, Richard Fee, and Hanelle M. Culpepper.

The first episode will be directed by Culpepper, whose credits include Star Trek: Picard. Jermain Julien (Grantchester) and Azhur Saleem (Doctor Who) are also on board to direct episodes.

Anansi Boys is being produced by Amazon Studios, the Blank Corp., Endor Productions, RED Production, and Paul Frift.

Gaiman released the following statement: 

Anansi Boys began around 1996, from a conversation I had with Lenny Henry about writing a story that was diverse and part of the culture that we both loved. Anansi Boys as a TV series has been a long time coming — I first started working with Endor and Red on making it over a decade ago. We needed Amazon Prime to come on board and embrace our vision, we needed a lead director with the craft and vision of Hanelle Culpepper, we needed the creative and technical wizardry of Douglas Mackinnon (who worked out how we could push the bounds of the possible to shoot a story set all over the world in a huge studio outside Edinburgh), and we needed the rest of the amazing talents that nobody knows about yet. We are trying to make a new kind of show with Anansi Boys, and to break ground with it to make something that celebrates and rejoices in diversity both in front of and behind the camera. I’m so thrilled it’s happening and that people will be meeting Mr. Nancy, Charlie and Spider, the Bird Woman and the rest of them."

If the name Mr. Nancy sounds familiar to you, it's because the character was also featured in Gaiman's American Gods and was played by Orlando Jones in the Starz series adaptation. Amazon made sure to specify that Anansi Boys is not connected to the American Gods show, this is a separate adaptation of Gaiman source material.