Get Out direct Jordan Peele is heading back to the heartland of horror as an executive producer of Lovecraft Country, an adaptation of Matt Ruff's novel of the same name that has been ordered to series on HBO.
Deadline reports the news for the Lovecraft Country adaptation, which is a collaboration between Peele's Monkeypaw Productions, J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. Television.
The one-hour pilot of the "anthological horror series" will be penned by Misha Green (Underground, Helix), who will also serve as a showrunner as well as an executive producer alongside Peele, Abrams, and Ben Stephenson.
Here's what Green had to say about adapting Ruff's novel, which deals with racism in America circa the 1950s:
“When I first read Lovecraft Country I knew it had the potential to be unlike anything else on television. Jordan, JJ, Bad Robot, Warner Bros and HBO are all in the business of pushing the limits when it comes to storytelling, and I am beyond thrilled to be working with them on this project.”
There's no word yet on who will direct the pilot episode, but we'll keep Daily Dead readers updated as more details are revealed. In the meantime, here's the official synopsis for Ruff's novel Lovecraft Country (via Amazon):
"The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.
At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.
A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today."
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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