Beloved TV producer Bryan Fuller has stepped away from yet another high-profile project, with Variety reporting that Fuller and his co-showrunner, Michael Green, have both quit their roles on Starz’s Neil Gaiman adaptation American Gods. According to Variety, the departure comes down to arguments about money; Green and Fuller were reportedly angling for a budget increase for the show’s already-announced second season, but production company FremantleMedia balked.
American Gods was a critical success for Starz in its first season, earning strong reviews for the way it tied Gaiman’s sprawling road trip of a novel into a more coherent story for TV. The ratings were less impressive; Starz never pulls in more than a few million viewers at a time in any case, but the series lagged behind more-established fare like Power and fellow lit-adaptation Outlander. Fuller and Green were still committed to the project, though; in an interview with us just last month, Green said, “Oh yes, this show is more than front burner for both of us—it is front bonfire. So this is where our hearts lie, this is where our hours are spent. American Gods is home.”
This is the second big-name show Fuller has left over the last year or so; he was previously set to be showrunner on CBS’s Star Trek: Discovery, but stepped away from the project to put more of his time and energy into Gods.