You have to scroll way way way way down to get to this bit:
Neil Gaiman: When Anansi Boys
first came out, we got a number of very big directors going after it and all of
them basically ended up saying the same thing, which was they had real problems
with a story as black people as leads in a fantasy movie. They just loved the
story… could they just lose all the fantasy elements? They’d want a guy and his
long lost brother and their shady father and… but you can’t. It’s one of those
strange moments when you go “I don’t know if it’s racist or if it’s just stupid…”
and probably more stupid than it is racist, but…
Quint: Probably both…
Neil Gaiman: Probably a little bit of both, but mainly just
stupidness. Well there aren’t any movies out there which are fantasies which
works with black people and therefore you can’t do them, but whatever. They
sort of remember the Eddie Murphy BROOKLYN VAMPIRE movie and decide to leave it
at that. I just think that was stupid. It’s like “Fine, I will keep Anansi Boys
until the right person comes along…”
Updated (an hour or so later)! Alerts in the inbox from a couple of those involved in the conversation mentioned in this here first graph shocked that I didn't crow about it on our behalf. They're right. In my defense, I was drive-by posting during lunch hour.
So. On behalf of all of us who guessed that the Hollywood People would need certain elements of that book to lighten up a *lot* before they could possibly turn it into a movie? WE TOTALLY CALLED THAT! Of course, now we're depressed to get confirmation, but still. On the other hand, sounds like the man's holding the barbarians at the gate so far. Which means there's the potential of hope. So we'll see.
