Neil Gaiman to Adapt Good Omens for TV

Neil Gaiman has just announced that he is working on a television adaptation of Good Omens, the novel he co-authored with Sir Terry Pratchett.

According to an article on The Guardian, Gaiman has decided to adapt the 1990 novel about the end of the world for television, despite previously refusing to do anything without Pratchett, who passed away in March 2015 from Alzheimer’s disease.

Gaiman had previously explained why he refused to do anything with Good Omens by himself:

“Terry and I had a deal that we would only work on Good Omens things together. Everything that was ever written – bookmarks and tiny little things – we would always collaborate, everything was a collaboration. So, obviously, no.”

But during a memorial event for Pratchett at the Barbican in London, Gaiman finally announced that he would be personally taking charge of adapting the book for television. Rob Wilkins, longtime friend and assistant to Pratchett, revealed that the latter had left a letter posthumously for Gaiman requesting him to write an adaptation by himself, with Pratchett’s blessing.

Good Omens was released in 1990 and is the darkly comic tale of the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale working together to deal with the Antichrist who just happens to be a schoolboy growing up in rural England.

Good Omens was most recently adapted in 2014 into a BBC 4 radio drama starring Mark Heap, Peter Serafinowicz, Louise Brealey, Phil Davis, Mark Benton, Colin Morgan, Paterson Joseph, Josie Lawrence, Jim Norton, Adam Thomas Wright, and Hollie Burgess, with cameos from Gaiman and Pratchett themselves.

Other adaptations of Pratchett’s works include: a film version of his 1987 novel Mort to be written by Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean), a film version of the 2003 novel Wee Free Men to be written by Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna, a fan-funded film of the short story Troll Bridge, and a fantasy procedural TV show called The Watch set in Pratchett’s Discworld universe.

Watch this space for more news on Good Omens.