“Sorcery and skulduggery in Jazz Age New York.”

At the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour over the weekend, AMC announced a current slate of select scripted and non-fiction projects in various stages of development for 2018 and beyond. One of those projects draws from the work of none other than H.P. Lovecraft.

Based on the novella “The Ballad of Black Tom” by Victor LaValle, in-development series “Ballad of Black Tom” will be co-executive produced by LaValle himself.

In the tale…

Tommy Tester is a street musician and hustler in jazz age New York who works odd jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over his father’s head. But when he delivers an occult object to a reclusive sorceress, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic and becomes caught up in a Lovecraftian conspiracy to conjure the destruction of the world.

“We are at our best when we bet on and support exceptional talent; and this diverse development slate, from exceptional creators with distinct points of view, includes multiple projects from longstanding and successful AMC partners,” said AMC’s Charlie Collier. “Our deep pipeline of projects embodies our ‘eclectic by design,’ quality programming approach and our ‘scripts-to-series’ development model that puts the emphasis on the most important part of our strategy – outstanding writing, a commitment to worlds you’ve never seen on TV before, and rich character development.”