#good omens production halt

[worrynoodle]

Well... shit

You know... I have mixed feelings. On one hand I'm disappointed, I hope they find a new showrunner/producer and get it made. But I also hate him so fucking much that if this has to happen... idk.

Amazon, please please don't cancel it. Please please just get someone else to run it? Please 🙏🏻

@primevideo

[sseanettles]

cool cool now do sandman

[crowleysgirl56]

Updated with edits!

Timeline of the last 12 months 15 months of the Good Omens fandom.

July 2023 - Good Omens season 2 drops. Fans watch on the presumption this season is based on the sequel idea Terry and NG spoke of in the 90’s and 2006. Reactions are mixed but mostly positive. We’re happy with fluff. Initial thoughts: “I don’t see how this story could have been fleshed out into an entire novel, but I guess it was only ever just initial ideas, so I suppose that works.”

July 2023 - THE KISS.

Fandom reaction: NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

August 2023 - NG responds to fandom

NG: “Season 2 isn’t actually based on the idea Terry and I spoke about.”

Fandom: “What?”

NG: “Season 2 is just a bridging story to get us to season 3. That will be the story that Terry and I discussed.”

Fandom: “What!?”

NG: “Season 3 hasn’t been greenlit by Prime yet so we might not get it.”

Fandom: “WHAT?!”

NG: “Also I wrote the kiss that way by giving the fandom what you want without actually giving you what you want. So like, stop asking me for things or I won’t write them.”

Fandom: “AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!”

August to November 2023 - The fandom, now lost and depressed, mope through the halls of Tumblr and Reddit, desperately clinging to any piece of information dropped by NG, sharing fan art, creating headcanons and theories, and writing the angstiest of angst fanfiction ever written. Some weep in a corner mumbling about the South Downs. Most just trudge through their daily lives, listless and despondent.

December 2023 - Prime greenlights Good Omens Season 3.

Fandom: YES! OMG HOORAY! WAHOO! Dancing in the streets. Fanfiction turns to fluff and smut. NG is active and happy, answering many questions without actually answering them. Gives us the hilarious gift of Dottie and Sadie.

January 2024 - speculation of when season 3 filming will begin commences. Realisation that it could be quite a while starts to sink in. Actors and writers strike has caused delay to the scripts being written. David and Michael have taken on theatre work which will delay their filming schedules. Douglas McKinnon announces he’s stepping away as director. Fandom has slight freak out, but NG reassures everyone it’s nothing to worry about, and linked to the recent strikes.

Early to mid 2024 - “The invisible and unbreakable line that joins Crowley and Aziraphale”.

Fandom: AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! We inevitably become even more feral. Much fanart is made.

March 2024 - David hosts the BAFTAs and Michael helps him during the opening. David is then nominated for TV BAFTA for Good Omens.

Fandom: OMG YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!! Much dancing and celebration is had once again. We are so in love.

May 2024 - filming schedule for GO season 3 is announced. It will commence January 2025. The fandom reacts.

Fandom: “That’s still so long away!” “Michael and David will have their hair dyed white and red for the awards season!” “Going by the previous production schedule this means season 3 won’t reach our screen until 2026! No!” “Cannot wait for this to start filming we are going to be so feral!” More fanfiction, more fanart.

June 2024 - David hosts Pub in the Park. Michael joins him.

Fandom: THEY ARE SO CUTE! HOW CAN THEY BE THIS CUTE, WE DON’T DESERVE THEM.

Early July 2024 - horrible allegations are laid against NG and the fandom comes to a terrible crashing halt. Much debate and discussion is had back and forth: “Believe the victims”. “Separate the art from the artist”. “Drop the fandom entirely”. “Step back for a moment”. There is a lot of arguing, but there is also still a lot of love. NG has fled all social media.

Late July 2024 - until it’s January, and the show actually starts filming, Good Omens season 3 has now become Schrödinger’s Series. It both now exists and doesn’t exist. Prime at any moment may pull the production due to the backlash against NG. The fandom now re-examines McKinnon’s departure speculating if he left for other reasons. We once again despondently trudge the halls of tumblr and Reddit feeling the same feeling of this time last year.

This section of the post was made in late July was this was original posted: And that pretty much brings us up to date. Anything could happen in the next six months, which is why I feel we’re all worried. It’s why I’m worried. So instead, keep sharing the art, keep writing the fanfiction, keep speculating with theories and headcanons. Let’s be here for each other. Because we created this fandom for each other. It doesn’t belong to NG anymore. Let’s do this for Terry. Personally, I can’t wait to come back to this timeline and add January 2025 - filming begins.

28 July 2024 - Michael Sheen, the absolute angel that he is posts a picture of his tartan socks clad feet alongside the caption “To our world”. Such a beautiful, beautiful man!

10 September 2024 - Amazon Prime announces production for season 3 is paused. Everyone loses their shit. There is much lamentations.

Unsubstantiated posts start circulating that the show is cancelled. People who have a friend whose cousin’s gardener’s former roommate claim they are involved with the production and therefore they KNOW the show is cancelled. More lamentations.

Amazon stays silent for EIGHT. FUCKING. WEEKS.

The fandom walk around in a god damn haze again akin to what August to December 2023 felt like. Will we be left with the final 15 forever?

Mid October 2024 - for about 3 days straight the fandom receives information that is akin to a rollercoaster of emotion. Head graphics designer Mickey tweets out a now deleted post that everyone is going back to Scotland. Then Peter Anderson Studio tweet out a now deleted post referencing the South Downs cottage. Then random casting company updates their subscription website advertising Good Omens: The Finale a TV movie. Entertainment website releases an article referencing this. The fandom LOSE. THEIR. SHIT. AGAIN. We honestly can’t take much more of this.

25 October 2024 - Amazon finally announces the news we’ve been half expecting half dreading with positive and negative ramifications. Neil Gaiman is gone. GOOD! Season 3 will still happen. GOOD! But now it’s just a 90 minutes finale. WAIT, WHAT, NO! But it could have been worse. It was a hairs breath away from being completely cancelled. GOD BLESS RHIANNA PRATCHETT AND ROB WILKINS.

It’s been a wild ride everyone. I’ve already posted earlier this morning (25 October 2024) my thoughts about the whole situation so go read that there. But for now? Gaiman is gone, and we get our ending.

For now here’s to seeing our boys with their red and white hair again.

[angie-words]

So there are rumours that production on season 3 of Good Omens has been paused. Not cancelled, just to be super clear. I'm feeling a lot of things:

- relief that the studio might be addressing/reckoning with the allegations against Gaiman (I've felt a growing discomfort at how the victims' stories seemed to have been ignored by more mainstream media - Disney halting production on The Graveyard Book appears to have opened the door)

- anger that his actions hurt so many and went unchallenged for so long; how he has harmed the livelihoods of those who work on the show; at how this has affected STP's family

- sadness that we may not see Sheen and Tennant bring Aziraphale and Crowley to life any time soon (edited as it originally made it sound like I was saying it would never happen)

- comfort as I recall that there are many writers, artists and creators who have already given the show many endings we can take solace in

Of course I also feel this:

[silvermountaingirl]

Interview with Scarlett

Scarlett, an alleged victim of Neil Gaiman (the nanny in New Zealand), was interviewed for a Sept. 14 article by Julie Bindel. Bindel is known for her transphobia, so many (including me) are choosing not to circulate the article in full, but I felt that Scarlett's own words are important to read. I excerpted those passages here.

"When I spoke to Scarlett last week, she told me how it felt impossible to not be impressed by Gaiman’s fame and status, while at the same time not feeling at all sexually attracted or drawn to him. “I’ve never read any of his books,” Scarlett tells me. “He just talked about himself all the time.”

For Scarlett, “Gaiman’s superfans somehow seem to think that they have personally been betrayed by the allegations because they see him as sharing their own tick-box ‘progressive’ values,” she told me. “It’s beyond belief for me that people just aren’t acknowledging that a man in his sixties has admitted that he got into the bath with his 23-year-old employee within the first few hours that they met.”

Scarlett, as with the other women who have come forward, was vulnerable at the time she met Gaiman, and, as she describes it, “desperate for love”. “Pretending to myself I had fallen for him was a way to kind of trick myself to think that I had not been sexually exploited,” she said.

…

How did the big corporations who profit from Gaiman’s work respond? While Disney and Netflix quietly paused their Gaiman adaptations, it took Amazon until last week to announce that filming of the final series of Good Omens had been halted due to the allegations. “I may be cynical,” Scarlett told me, “but I don’t imagine that Amazon or Disney have paused production because they altruistically care about allegations of abuse. Amazon and Disney have likely suspended production because they are a business, and the only thing that drives a business is cost. This is about cash and not care.”

[neil-gaiman]

Hello, Mr. Gaiman. I have a slightly strange, but very important question for us, since we have a huge fan base. Can we hope for the release of good omens in Russia?

The Russian audience for Good Omens was indeed huge -- I was told by Amazon that it was the most-watched show in Russia at the time of its release.

In March 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Amazon shut off its Prime Video service in Russia. Unless and until the war is over, and Ukraine and Russia have declared a peace, and Amazon Prime Video starts up in Russia once more, I don't imagine that Good Omens will be released in Russia, no.

[hoshiko2000]

So with production for Good Omens Season 3 officially halted, it does look like cancellation may be on the horizon. Because yeah, I really don't think Amazon would 'pause' production on a show this lucrative if there wasn't serious discussions currently going on about 'if' and 'how' it should continue. A production shuffle-up - ie. Neil Gaiman getting booted and new staff being put in charge - is certainly a possibility. But it is important to remember that this will still be a show that is written by him and very intrinsically linked to his brand. And whether fans or studios will still have an appetite for it considering this fact is something that has to be seriously considered.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that as disappointing as it would be, cancelling Good Omens season 3 may be the hard but right decision. And, frankly, if season 2 is anything to go by, we may not be missing out on too much to be honest.

But on a serious note, I do want to use this news as an opportunity to share my own thoughts on the situation, which I will do under the cut (and as is probably obvious, there are trigger warnings for references to SA).

Despite Neil Gaiman's works being a massive part of my content here on this tumblr - and yes, that is something I am very aware of- I've not posted about the sexual assault allegations up until now for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm a working adult in my 30s; tumblr is very much a place I come to chill, I'm far too old (and frankly, tired) to get involved in discourse or heated fandom debates (not that those are the correct terms to use to refer to rape allegations but you catch my drift). But the other reason is that these revelations have honestly devasted me, in a way that I'm still processing and doesn't feel like an exaggeration to describe as grief, a feeling I'm sure is echoed by many other people.

Neil Gaiman's works have been a massive part of my adult life, and while I know it sounds like a cliche, they have gotten me through some incredibly difficult times. Coming to terms with the fact that such beautiful, thoughtful, empathetic novels and series have been written by a rapist has been incredibly difficult.

What has also been incredibly difficult to come to terms with is the fact that the incredible queer representation that has drawn so many of us to his television works in recent years was, in hindsight, indisputably a grooming tactic. And yes, grooming is the right word.

The grooming of communities is not something that is often discussed but is absolutely a thing. Predators groom victims to gain access to them, and they groom the people around both the victim and themselves to make it seem unbelievable when the victim later comes forward. And this can happen parasocially too. In the case of Neil Gaiman, he groomed his fanbase by constructing a calculated image as vocal a LGBT ally, drawing in queer fans and creating a smokescreen of apparent empathy and kindness to cast doubt on the future allegations he likely knew would inevitably catch up with him.

I really want to stress - particularly for younger fans - that no one is stupid or somehow culpable for having been fooled by Gaiman, for having supported his works previously, and for continuing to support his works now. I myself have no intention to leave the fandoms I am already a part of, and I genuinely do not believe anyone is under any sort of pressure or obligation to do so. The separation of the art from the artist is a very tricky subject and not something that can ever be done entirely. And if I'm honest I'm not really sure how to navigate this myself, or what this is going to mean for me in the future.

But to get back to the subject of my blog, yes I am planning to continue reposting content related to Good Omens and Dead Boy Detectives. However the latter differs drastically in that the series was not actually written by Neil Gaiman and is effectively an author-approved spin-off of one of his works. Good Omens on the other hand I have more complicated feelings towards, and at this point I am not sure how I feel about future series being made, with or without Gaiman's involvement.

I'm sorry if this post is a rambling mess, it has taken me a lot of time to build up to being able to share my thoughts, and while there is a lot more I could say I will stop here. But on a closing note, let's just be kind to each other. This situation is awful, lets not make it any worse. Give space for the victims, give space for the fans, and give space to people to continue to enjoy fandom spaces without making assumptions about where they stand on these allegations. It is a hard time, but things will get better, and these fandom spaces will continue to be a positive place for people to exist online. Lets keep it that way.

[grumpy-gran]

The sliver of news about Good Omens’ halt in production has shone a brighter light on the priorities of a vocal section of the fandom. Can’t say I’m surprised… though I’m reminded once again not to associate the word “wholesome” with the fandom going forward.

[amaliazeichnerin]

September 6, 2024 According to this new article, Good Omens season 3 will get produced despite the allegations against Neil Gaiman.

EDIT: September 11, 2024 The above is now old news. Here are new ones about GO season 3: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/good-omens-halts-production-neil-gaiman-allegations-1236138923/ A personal note from a fan perspective: I like Michael Sheen and David Tennant a lot, also how they played their respective roles on the show. I also like some of the other actors and their roles. However, at this point I am not sure if I want to watch season 3 at all. Especially if Neil Gaiman stays as executive producer and showrunner, as is mentioned in the article.

[lickthecowhappy]

My productivity was brought to a screeching halt when I saw a breathtaking piece of good omens art and I have not and will not recover.

[lamuella]

Can't say I'm surprised. And this is the right decision.

[guentzel]

i need to rant about the a's situation, mainly the fact that the ownership points to the success of the golden knights in las vegas, and how the city accepted them:

the city didn't accept them because "oh new sport," the city accepted them because they came out, were a homegrown team, and actually put a quality product on show. the team was good. the ownership was clearly putting money on the line to provide for the fans and provide a good quality experience.

the a's have never done that. even when they were 'good', it was because they were paying these guys the least amount possible, and got them before they were worth anything. as soon as the guys asked to be paid what they were owed, they got rid of them. that was moneyball. that was oakland baseball. and it worked for a while, until other teams caught on and started doing similar. and then the a's never adjusted. they never put more money into their team, they continued to put the least quality team out there year after year. they didn't even take care of their stadium. there were possums living in the visiting broadcaster's booth. the a's ownership showed everyone that if you dont treat them like special little babies, if you dont support them even when theyre giving you shit, they dont care about you. they dont care about the fans. they dont care about anything.

furthermore, gaining a fanbase for baseball is one of the hardest things to do. there's 162 games a year. miami and tampa bay have been in the league for almost thirty years, and still struggle to have a consistent fanbase. there's not going to be that same reception in vegas as it was for the golden knights. not to mention, most people in vegas don't even want the a's there. they'd rather have a homegrown team instead of the slop that's being transferred from oakland. and even if it was a homegrown team, there's no guarantee that they'd even succeed. again, look at miami and tampa bay. they're similar to the a's in the sense that they have, historically, never spent a lot of money, and have never had a lot of success. the marlins struggle with consistency and have won two world series. if that isn't a bad omen, i dont know way is.

not to mention that the plan for the ballpark has been indefinitely halted. next year, the team's literally going to be playing at a triple a field in sacramento. the entire team is broken, and moving it isnt going to help, because youre retaining the same shitty ownership.

the athletics arent gonna be the next golden knights. theyre going to be the next coyotes.

[shadow-manor]

GODDAMMIT

[shadowmaat]

This is an issue that has been going on for years and years, so it isn't really a recent problem, although I do think that their Applied Statistics System is based on ever-increasing numbers. That might make sense mathematically, but when applied to the actual world, it's becoming untenable. It's getting more and more difficult for new shows to meet Netflix's standards of "success," but Corporate doesn't seem to care. It isn't their fault, it's the audience! It's also, very likely, some kind of money-making scam akin to Certain Big Studios' habit of spending millions on movies and then canceling them before release so they can get a tax write-off.

That said, I think it's a bit disingenuous to throw Dead Boy Detectives into the mix without mentioning the flaming pile of shit in the room. While it's entirely possible, and in keeping with Netflix's "model," to kill a successful show after a single season, in THIS case there's also the issue of Neil Gaiman being a serial rapist and abuser ("allegedly"), which could also be a factor in the show's cancellation. Disney has halted production of an adaptation of his Graveyard Book, and Amazon has paused Good Omens season 3. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the second season of Sandman, since I'm reading that filming has already wrapped on that one. Will Netflix air it or just take the writeoff? That might help determine if DBD was axed because of the ASS or because of the asshole.

Either way, Netflix is definitely fucking up very badly and I don't think they're going to change their model any time soon.

It's really not surprising that @netflix is losing a LOT of money this week. Within the span of just a couple of weeks, they:

Ended one of their most beloved shows (TUA) in what was literally one of the worst conclusions ever written

Announced a homophobic version of Dorian Gray where Basil and Dorian were brothers

Canceled a critically acclaimed new show (DBDA) after one season despite its large, dedicated fanbase after failing to market that show

Implemented ads on Netflix plans that did not previously have them, essentially serving as a price increase for a lot of people

This is a genuinely insane metric to see, especially for a company as large as @netflix. Honestly, it's super embarrassing, but a natural product of their recent behaviour.