Movie Matchmaker: Walter Salles' American Gods
by Tom Burns

There are a few cold hard certainties when it comes to pop culture-focused websites like The Deadbolt. Yes, we know who the Tron guy is, no, we didn't watch "Two Girls/One Cup," but we did watch the reaction videos, and, yes, like almost all other well-read nerds across the internet, we are very, very big fans of Neil Gaiman. Even if you have a low tolerance for the eyeliner-ed Tori Amos fans who keep trying to get you to read Gaiman's acclaimed Sandman comic book series - and, no, we don't have any idea who'd be perfect for a Sandman movie (leave that one as is, Jon Peters) - it's hard to deny that the man is a brilliant storyteller and has created some of the most mythically-fun novels of the past few decades. Understandably so, particularly given Gaiman's massive fanbase, Hollywood has attempted on several occasions to bring his words to the big screen, with decidedly mixed results. Gaiman authored the screenplay translation for Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (awesome) and co-wrote Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture Beowulf with Roger Avary (pretty darn good). He wrote the script for his frequent collaborator Dave McKean's experimental Henson Company-produced MirrorMask (gorgeously empty) and, most recently and notably, his novel Stardust got a big-budget adaptation thanks to Layer Cake's Matthew Vaughn (noble, though lop-sided effort). Further down the pike, Gaiman has a Henry Selick-directed stop-motion adaptation of his Gorey-esque children's book Coraline (with a soundtrack by They Might Be Giants, no less!) scheduled to be released early next year as well as a bevy of rumored projects, ranging from Gaiman directing an adaptation of his own Death: The High Cost of Living comic series (this seems like a pretty sure thing), supposedly imminent news about an Anansi Boys movie (color us excited), and an adaptation of the Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel, Good Omens, by Terry Gilliam (great choice of director, but ten bucks says Gilliam never gets it off the ground).

So, with all of those potential matches already up in the air, what, you may be asking yourself, is left for The Deadbolt's Movie Matchmaker, our recurring column that attempts to suggest perfect pairings of directors and source material? Only one of Gaiman's richest and best works - his epic novel American Gods. Our Movie Matchmaker crew thought long and hard about what filmmaker could best resurrect American Gods at your local multiplex, and we kept coming back to the same name - Walter Salles, director of Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries. Here's why we think the match would not only work, but work beautifully.

THE BOOK

For those of you who haven't read it already (and if you haven't, shame on you) American Gods creates a brain-burning portrait of an America peopled by gods that travelled to the "new world" on the backs of the tired, poor, huddled masses and have become forever altered during their time on such foreign soil. It's a world of road-side Americana - Route 66, the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota, the Mystery Spot, and their ilk - mixed with the gods and fables of old, from Norse deities to Irish faerie folk, who are recast as immigrants - some who have successfully gone native and others... not so much. The plot follows a recently released ex-con named Shadow who is hired as a bodyguard by the strangely charming Mr. Wednesday, who is travelling across America visiting a series of his increasingly eccentric colleagues. It is soon revealed that Wednesday is the American incarnation of the Norse god Odin, and he's trying to rally the other American-versions of the world's various classical deities to join him in a desperate battle against the "New" American Gods - gods of plastic, internet, freeway, and credit card, to name a few - before the original gods are utterly destroyed. Shadow is wholly drawn into the battle between gods and, as anyone who is familiar with Norse mythology knows, once Loki, the god of lies, shows up, all bets, beliefs, and allegiances are off. Perhaps the coolest aspect of this unquestionably cool novel is how Gaiman structures the story as an epic road movie, casting the American highways and byways - the roadside attractions, the small-towns, the local legends - as the connective tissue of both his plot and the whole of American mythology.

Movie Matchmaker: Walter Salles' American Gods Page 2