Neil Gaiman American Gods TV series confirmed - who will play Shadow Moon and Wednesday?

Neil Gaiman's popular fantasy novel American Gods is set to be turned into a live action TV series.

The project has reportedly been in development for quite some time now, with earlier rumours suggesting that it might end up as a HBO mini-series. But its now been confirmed that Starz (the network behind Outlander) will be airing the TV adaptation, according to a report from ComicBookMovie.

Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) and Michael Green (Kings) will take show-runner duties. According to a press release issued by FreemantleMedia, Gaiman will be involved as an executive producer. The writer expressed his excitement about the development in a statement:

"I am thrilled, ‎scared, delighted, nervous and a ball of glorious anticipation. The team that is going to bring the world of American Gods to the screen has been assembled like the master criminals in a caper movie: I'm relieved and confident that my baby is in good hands. Now we finally move to the exciting business that fans have been doing for the last dozen years: casting our Shadow, our Wednesday, our Laura..."

As Gaiman states, the next big task for the team is casting the protagonist, Shadow Moon – and it seems both Gaiman and Starz would love to hear some of the fans' suggestions:

The search for Shadow begins today! Who do you envision as Shadow Moon in #AmericanGods? Tweet us your thoughts with #CastingShadow.
— American Gods (@AmericanGodsSTZ) June 16, 2015

American Gods tells the story of Shadow, a man who learns that his wife, Laura, has died in a mysterious car crash during his last days of a prison sentence. He then takes a job as a bodyguard for a mysterious conman called Mr Wednesday, who seems to know more about Shadow's life than he lets on.

Shadow and Wednesday travel across America visiting Wednesday's unusual colleagues and acquaintances until Shadow learns that Wednesday is in fact an incarnation of the Norse god Odin.

In his current guise, Wednesday is recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology, whose powers have waned as their believers have decreased in number, to participate in an epic battle against the New American Gods, who are manifested in the forms of modern technology such as the internet.