Game of Thrones showrunners producing H.P. Lovecraft movie for Warner Bros.

Game of Thrones is over, and showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are planning their next moves. In addition to signing a massive deal with Netflix, Deadline reports that the pair are now attached to produce an adaptation of the graphic novel Lovecraft by Hans Rodionoff and artist Keith Giffen. Here’s the synopsis for the comic, which came out in 2004:

"A fascinating but disturbing study of one of America’s greatest horror writers, the intense LOVECRAFT examines the bizarre life of author and recluse, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Since his early childhood in the late 1800’s Lovecraft was haunted with dark visions of demons and death. Trapped in a world of macabre creatures and grotesque thoughts, the writer found escape only by weaving his living nightmares into fictional blood curling horror stories. An uncensored tour into a troubled mind, this beautifully painted hardcover edition traces the toils of a man considered both mentally ill and genius as he stumbles across the fine line between reality and insanity."

Or as The Hollywood Reporter puts it: “What if the horrors imagined by H.P. Lovecraft, the troubled author of ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ and the short story ‘The Call of Cthulhu,’ were not imaginary but real?” Spooky.

It wasn’t that long ago that Benioff and Weiss split with Disney over a planned new trilogy of Star Wars films. The pair cited the Netflix deal as the main reason that didn’t work out, so it’s a little surprising to see them involved with another movie. Then again, one movie is less than three.

More troubling is the content of Lovecraft itself. On the one hand, H.P. Lovecraft is one of history’s most influential horror authors, basically creating a new genre focused on the terror of the unknown. You can see his influence everywhere, from movies (Re-Animator, The Thing, Annihilation) to video games (Bloodborne) and beyond. And straight adaptations of his stories are making a comeback. There’s a movie version of Color out of Space coming in January that producers hope is the first step to “build[ing] out a Lovecraft universe.”

However, in life, Lovecraft was a well-known racist, something that’s clearly reflected in his work. If the Warner Bros. movie is going to be about Lovecraft the man, it’ll feel irresponsible not to address that part of his legacy. But if the movie does dig into that part of Lovecraft’s life, it could easily go very wrong, very fast.

This brings to mind Confederate, a show Benioff and Weiss were once going to make for HBO about an alternate reality where the Civil War was fought to a standstill and slavery still existed in the United States. The show got a ton of backlash right out of the gate, and now lies dormant, very likely never to be revived. And now the pair are embarking on another project with controversial racial undertones. Will history repeat itself?

There is currently no release date for Lovecraft, which will be written by  Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi.

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