New American Gods trailer: Starz’s new drama goes for celestial broke

American Gods is one of this year’s most anticipated new TV shows, and from the looks of its latest trailer, we’re in for a trippy good time.

The upcoming Starz series — which gave fans a sneak peek at the premiere episode during Austin’s South by Southwest festival this past weekend — is based on Neil Gaiman’s popular book of the same name, which described an epic clash between old gods and new ones in the modern day. The book has had a passionate fan base since it was published in 2001, so when Starz announced it would be adapting it for TV back in 2014 — after HBO tried and ultimately failed to do so — it immediately inspired a frenzy of excitement and speculation.

In this trailer, we get to see more of how bodyguard Shadow Moon (The 100’s Ricky Whittle) gets caught up in the world of mysterious figure Mr. Wednesday (Deadwood’s Ian McShane), who turns out to be a deity with many other gods circling in his orbit, for better and for worse.

Starz first gave us a glimpse at the adaptation last summer, but this new trailer offers a much more extensive look at how Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller and Heroes producer Michael Green are bringing Gaiman’s story to life. We see Shadow Moon make his way through deserts and distorted dreamscapes, encounter celestial powers like Easter (Kristin Chenoweth), and receive dire warnings from his wife Laura (Emily Browning) from beyond the grave. We see a bloodied girl shuffling down a suburban road carrying her own arm, and a charging buffalo spewing orange flames from its eyes.

We see, in other words, a whole lot of weird shit — which is exactly what we might’ve expected from the dark, even eerie source material of Gaiman’s American Gods.

As for the things we don’t get a look at — like Gillian Anderson as Media or Dane Cook as Shadow Moon’s bro in arms — we’ll just have to wait until the show premieres on April 30.

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