Movies
Ron Howard Talks ‘Lovecraft’ Adaptation
It was revealed back in March that Director extraordinaire Ron Howard (The Da Vinci Code , Frost/Nixon, Apollo 13) could possibly take the reigns for The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft, a live-action adaptation of Image’s comic series for Universal and Imagine Entertainment. This evening the Los Angeles Times caught up with Howard, who speaks on the project he calls “new territory for me.” Read on for the skinny.
“It very cleverly uses H.P. Lovecraft in a fictional way, but there’s some loose biographical elements. But it certainly has the flavor and the tone of Lovecraft,” Howard told the LA Times speaking of the big budget Image Comics adaptation. “The character is a very young Lovecraft.”
Speaking of the size of the film, Howard explains, “Look, it’s challenging, but if we get it right, it could be really original and psychologically interesting and scary in a great way. And it’s a graphic novel, this is new territory for me.”
Created by Mac Carter and Jeff Blitz, the book borrows elements from Lovecraft’s life, such as his family’s struggle with mental illness and his own bouts with writer’s block, and transforms the young writer’s darkest nightmares into reality when he comes across a book that puts a curse on him and lets the evils he conjures up loose on the world.
“It is kind of fun, but you know Freud has been used that way and Einstein in the past,” Howard said. “I’m very encouraged by it so far, the approach and the possibilities.”
Hopefully the project comes into fruition sometime soon as there’s nothing better than a big time director taking on our genre (it rarely happens).
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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