Co-Author Neil Gaiman Talks about the Good Omens Adaptation
"The uproarious tale of the friendship between an angel and a demon is being televised at last,[Gaiman] stressed, because of the friendship between two writers. 'Terry Pratchett asked me to do it,' he said. 'And I did.'” Cannot wait to watch, @neilhimself https://t.co/KE6bV1mNYZ pic.twitter.com/H28uBYMrL1
- Maria Konnikova (@mkonnikova) June 3, 2019
-Released in 1990, there had been two previous attempts to adapt Good Omens to screen (there's a radio play adaptation). In 2002, Terry Gilliam wanted to do a movie with Johnny Depp as Crowley and Robin Williams as Aziraphale, but it fell through. Then a decade later Terry Jones wanted to shoot for a television adaptation, but that also fell through.
-Co-author Terry Pratchett, who passed away in 2015 from Alzheimers, sent co-author Neil Gaiman a letter in 2014 when his condition had gotten very severe asking Gaiman to make sure an adaptation happened. “We’d been friends for 35 years. He said: ‘I’ve never asked you anything before, and we’ve always agreed that with anything related to “Good Omens” we either do it together or we don’t do it. But you have to do this. No one else can do it. I know how busy you are, but I want to see this before I can’t see anything.’ So I had to do it [...] Terry Pratchett asked me to do it. And I did.” Elsewhere in the article, David Tennant comments on how keen Gaiman is to honor Terry Pratchett's memory.
-The scripts Gaiman wrote for the adaptation were too costly for the BBC alone but thanks to a new law in 2016, they were allowed to collaborate with competitors so Amazon covered 70% of the budget. "On the one hand, you have a Kafka-esque organization like the BBC and on the other you have the Wild West. And they have to learn to play well together.
-The show is currently on Amazon Prime and will air on the BBC in six months. There will also be a home release.
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[Tumblr Asks Including that Dove Scene]Screenshots taken from his tumblr
Gaiman has previously posted his thoughts that what's on the page/screen is canon and that you're free to come up with your own headcanons, and that he won't validate/shoot down any headcanons.
[Twitter Asks]
Just a bit baffled by anyone who actually thinks of God as a human male. And I cast Frances as the Voice of God because I wanted a God who felt convincing. But yes, letting people who would be offended know that they could turn off immediately didn't hurt.
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2019
If it's any consolation, I had a tiny crisis of conscience on this, and came down on the white gloves side because a) it's what he does in the book and b) he will miraculously look after any book he gets his hands on. https://t.co/6SasbeV2zp
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2019
Stuart Lightbody.
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 3, 2019
Yes. Yes.
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 3, 2019
It is.
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2019
As played by Paul Kaye, you did https://t.co/MGqV2YGYmO
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2019
And delighting in negative reviews from bigots
You know, it's when people who proclaim themselves as "white supremacists" turn off Good Omens after the first few minutes, and then come on Twitter to tell me off, that I think sometimes a negative review is a marvelous and heartwarming thing. https://t.co/AwX3oclXaZ
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2019
To make Adam and Eve black? No. But it's there to, among other things, let people like you know that you can stop watching now. You wouldn't like what's up ahead. The show is mean to Nazis, for a start.
- Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2019
source: 1/ 2/3/4/ 5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/ 14/ 15/ 16/ 17/ 18/ 19/ 20/ 21
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