'There was a never a sense of ‘Let’s bank this for later.’ When you have 10 people in a room, you’re always able to come up with new ideas. 'My strategy was to take all of its dope, cool stuff and write new dope, cool stuff,' she said, laughing. Green added in HBO's Q+A that she essentially used Ruff's book and his characters as 'a beautiful jumping-off point' for the TV series.

Green, a Black woman, feels like a stronger fit to not only inherit Ruff's source material, but adjust and expand upon it for the screen. While the Lovecraft Country book was well-received when it was published, it remains the story of a Black family during the Jim Crow era being told by an author, Ruff, who is white. The very idea of Green running Lovecraft Country is an interesting one with a lot of potential. I said, ‘I’m ready to make this into an epic television show.’ 'I thought, ‘I want to explore these characters and their journeys.’ I was also really into the idea of reclaiming the genre space for those who’ve typically been left out of it. In a Q+A sent to press by HBO, Green explained how she was working on Underground when her agents suggested that she might want to adapt a book called Lovecraft Country. Green, a talented writer who's previous project was the underrated and critically-acclaimed series Undergound, is Lovecraft Country's showrunner. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions, and together it was decided this was the right mix for a big ol' TV show.Īnd while the major names of Peele and Abrams were the headliners when the series was first announced, it's Misha Green who's running the show. But the right people saw it, clearly, because in 2017 Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions brought the book to J.J. The book was well-received, and while it was successful in genre circles, it didn't quite land on any New York Times bestseller lists. When author Matt Ruff's pulpy, historical fiction/sci-fi/horror/fantasy genre-bender of a novel Lovecraft Country was released in 2016, it wasn't immediately a massive hit. Here are all the biggest changes, and points of comparison, between HBO's Lovecraft Country and the novel by Matt Ruff.Showrunner Misha Green says Ruff's book was 'a beautiful jumping-off point' for the series.HBO's new series Lovecraft Country is based upon the book of the same name by Matt Ruff, which was released in 2016.Spoiler warning: The following story contains spoilers for HBO's Lovecraft Country.

Lovecraft matt ruff