“Recently Gaiman shared his thoughts on “racebending” in an interview with Junot Diaz. Bleeding Cool reports that during the interview, Gaiman brought up two of his books: Anansi Boys and American Gods. Apparently Gaiman refused to the sell the rights to Anansi Boys when a producer told him he would have to change the race of the two main characters because “Black people don’t like fantasy.” Considering the entire book is about two brothers whose father was an African god, their race is vital the story and is not something Gaiman would ever consider changing.”
Yup and yup Neil.
I remember his interview from 10 years ago, when Neil could’ve sold Anansi Boys for TV or a movie a lot earlier:
Gaiman had offers to make a film out of his 2005 best seller Anansi Boys, about the sons of an African god discovering their magical background while living in the corrupt modern world, but moviemakers wanted to change the lead black characters to white or drop the magical elements altogether. “I don’t need the money,” Gaiman says. “Not needing the money puts me in a magical place because I can say no. I like the idea of having good movies made or having no movies made.”
(via slyrider)
