Back in May of last year it was announced that J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Jordan Peele (Get Out) are teaming for a small screen adaptation of Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel Lovecraft Country, and now comes word from THR that Yann Demange (’71, Top Boy) is also on board to executive produce the series and direct the first episode.
Lovecraft Country “focuses on 25-year-old Atticus Black. After his father goes missing, Black joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America to find him. This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the malevolent spirits that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.”
The project has received a straight-to-series order from HBO, with the goal of crafting “an anthological horror series that reclaims genre storytelling from the African-American perspective.”
Demange is currently in post-production on his latest film White Boy Rick, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and is slated to open in August. He has also been mentioned as a contender for the director’s chair on Bond 25 along with Danny Boyle (Trainspotting), Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) and David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water).