Game of Thrones’ Benioff and Weiss to bring Lovecraft to the screen

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had great success bringing George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series of novels to the screen, and for a while they were planning to follow that series up by developing a trilogy of films set in the STAR WARS universe… But they decided not to move forward with that STAR WARS project, so now they have some extra time to develop other properties. Like an adaptation of Hans Rodionoff's graphic novel LOVECRAFT.

Benioff and Weiss will be producing LOVECRAFT for Warner Bros. It's not clear if they will be directing the film as well, but they have hired a writing team to adapt Rodionoff's story into a screenplay: LOVECRAFT is being written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredini, who recently worked with Karyn Kusama on THE INVITATION and DESTROYER.

They'll be working with Kusama on this one as well; she is on board to serve as an executive producer on LOVECRAFT.

Rodionoff's graphic novel, which can be purchased HERE, had the following description: 

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.

The Deadline report of the Benioff/Weiss news says that the film will be set in 1920, within the Cthulu mythos, and will ask the question: "What if H.P. Lovecraft wasn’t making it up? What if the monsters he created are real?"

LOVECRAFT was first published by Vertigo in 2004, and Benioff and Weiss have been in talks with Warner Bros. about bringing the story to the screen for several years. They were just too busy with Game of Thrones to give the adaptation enough attention. That's why this WB project is starting to get off the ground now, even though Benioff and Weiss recently signed a megadeal with Netflix. They were in discussions with WB about this long before the Netflix deal came along.

It's a little surprising that they didn't just ask Rodionoff to write the adaptation himself. He is an established screenwriter, having written genre films like THE HOLLOW (2004), MAN-THING, LOST BOYS: THE TRIBE, LOST BOYS: THE THIRST, and DEEP BLUE SEA 2.