Neil Gaiman On Adapting Good Omens For Television Without Terry Prachett
by Erik Amaya
After decades of trying to make it happen, Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens is coming to television as 6-part Amazon Prime original series. But in order to make the series a reality, Gaiman to control of the project as its showrunner and executive producer. And as he tells Entertainment Weekly, it was Prachett’s wish that Gaiman see the book adapted into a film or television show. In fact, Prachett wrote him an email shortly before his death in 2015, writing, “You’re the only person with the same passion for the old girl as I have.”
Honoring what felt was a last request from a friend and partner, Gaiman saw it through, but he admitted to feeling Prachett’s absence most keenly while writing the series. “It was frustrating as a writer because when I got stuck, I didn’t have Terry to call,” Gaiman explained. “And when I did something really clever and got unstuck, I didn’t have Terry to phone up and say, ‘Hey, I did this clever thing!'” Nevertheless, he was committed to making a show Prachett would have liked. Even if it meant becoming more protective of the material than he’s even been when people adapt his solo works.
Where he encourages experimentation on things like the Neverwhere TV series or American Gods, here he felt much more defensive. “With this, it was like, ‘People want to cut this scene?! But Terry wrote this scene! This scene is not going to be cut!’ And I got to be much more of a bastard.”
Good Omens debuts on Amazon in 2019.
