It’s official. Neil Gaiman is now onboard with Tom Hanks’ production company, Playtone, to develop a television series based on Gaiman’s fantasy novel, American Gods. Playtone had bought filming rights to the novel earlier in 2011, but now Gaiman has signed up to be both the main writer and executive producer for the series.

The company plans to produce six seasons with ten 1-hour episodes, at an estimated budget of $40 million per season. Of course, this is all dependent on performance and ratings once the initial episodes are released.