Greek Gods Come to Television
News has come out that Ben Stiller has optioned a new book for development as a television comedy series. The book in question? “Gods Behaving Badly” by Marie Phillips. The book checks in with the Greek pantheon, now sharing a flat in London, to find them living a very modern (and mundane) existence.
Cover to the American edition of the book.
“Come down in the world since their days on Mount Olympus, the gods are now crammed together in a run-down town house where they continue their eternal squabbles and plotting. Phillips has given each of the gods appropriately modern – and fairly unimaginative – occupations: Aphrodite, goddess of love, works as a phone sex operator; Dionysus, god of wine, runs a nightclub; Artemis, goddess of the hunt, walks dogs for a living.”
From what I can glean, it seems very much like Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods”, with an emphasis placed on the story of Orpheus (instead of Balder, as in Gaimain’s novel). According to this news story, Stiller’s Red Hour Films are currently searching for a writer to translate the work to the small screen. Is the world ready for a comedy television series starring Zeus, Dionysus, Apollo, and Artemis?
As for the book itself, it is being released to stores on December 10th (though you can order it now from Amazon), and I look forward to giving it a read-through. The reviews have been middling, but I’m a sucker for stories infused with classical myths.
4 responses so far
This isn’t the first time someone has used this particular theme. Tanya Huff’s novel Summon the Keeper has an episode where the heroine (who is running a Toronto B&B with a portal to Hell in the basement, a haunted elevator, and a comatose demigoddess in one of the bedrooms,) is asked if she can accommodate “five retired Olympians.) Who turn out to be Zeus, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, and Hermes, who is driving the minivan they arrive in.
The Huff book wasn’t a bad light read. Perhaps this won’t be either.
Heck, Thorne Smith did this 75 years ago in The Night Life of the Gods – and gloriously funny it is, too.
Your description of the characters leaves me wondering how this show can be a success. It sounds rediculous.
Been there, done that.
Check out:
And DOWNSIZING OF THE GODS (a sardonic comedy that’s incredibly
topical at the moment but alas, far too cerebral for nearly all
audiences and every festival that we submitted to except for two, one
which subsequently went defunct before the film screened):
http://www.downsizingfilm.com/
or
http://www.downsizingofthegods.com/
Watchable online:
http://www.undergroundfilm.com/films/detail.tcl?wid=1033096