They’ve gone from the far reaches of Westeros to (almost) a galaxy, far, far, away. For David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the next stop on their journey is 1920s New England with a whole lot of tentacle monsters.
Deadline reports that the Game of Thrones co-creators, and almost Star Wars producers, have struck a deal with Warner Bros. to adapt the graphic novel Lovecraft by Hans Rodionoff, Enrique Breccia, and Keith Giffen.
Originally published by Vertigo in 2004, Lovecraft blends fiction and reality in a semi-autobiographical tale about legendary (but also controversial) sci-fi and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft, imagining that many of his most terrifying creations actually existed in his real life.
Karyn Kusama, director of The Invitation, is on board as an executive producer, and her screenwriting team, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, have joined as writers.
That part of the news, taken as it stands, sounds rather promising. Obviously the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft are haunting and beautiful, but can sometimes prove too risky for the big screen (Guillermo del Toro famously wasn’t able to get At the Mountains of Madness made). So taking this more grounded, relatable approach to his work seems like a clever way in.
However, the more interesting twist here is Benioff and Weiss themselves. The pair very famously signed a massive deal with Netflix earlier this year—the same deal they noted as being the reason they left the Star Wars films.
“There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects,” the pair said at the time. And yet now, they are doing another movie that’s not with Netflix.
According to the Deadline piece, the duo had been discussing this project with Warner Bros. long before the Netflix deal was in place, and that is almost certainly true. But was that not the case with Star Wars as well? And, if so, why drop Star Wars, but not this?
The time commitment of multiple movies versus just one? Was their more to their Star Wars exit than mere scheduling? We can only speculate. And while the as yet-untitled adaptation of Lovecraft certainly sounds interesting, whatever went on behind the scenes may be even more so.