Posted in: Horror, Movies | Tagged: hp lovecraft, nicolas cage, richard stanley, the color out of space

Richard Stanley to Adapt Lovecraft's Color Out of Space

Horror director Enfant Terrible Richard Stanley is emerging from the shadows with his first feature length movie for twenty years, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's classic novella The Colour Out of Space, and he's brought Nicolas Cage with him.

Full disclosure: I know Richard Stanley – I first met him when he was fighting Harvey Weinstein over his second movie Dust Devil and was putting together his Director's Cut. Everyone knows about his getting pushed out of directing The Island of Doctor Moreau, starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, and the mess the movie became in his absence, detailed in the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Doctor Moreau. For all the awful and insane incidents that mentioned in the documentary, there are plenty more stories that are unprintable for legal reasons. Adapting Lovecraft into movies has been a long-standing ambition of Stanley's, and the prospect of him getting a chance is cause for horror fans to be excited about. He has a dark and mystical point of view that will suit the cosmic horror of Lovecraft's worldview.

"There needs to be a scary Lovecraft movie," Stanley said a few years ago when he finished the script. "I want to make a bad trip film and The Colour Out Of Space definitely has what it takes to be a very, very bad trip indeed…"

(We're fairly confident Nicolas Cage will not be wearing a Navy uniform in this movie.)

Cage, fresh off the success of Mandy, will star alongside Joely Richardson, Tommy Chong, Korianna Kilcher, Eliot Knight and Julian Hilliard. Color Out of Space is about a family named the Gardners that moves out to a remote farmland to get away from the big city. Then a meteorite crashes into their front yard, as you do, and infects the land, warping time and space around it. Don't you hate it when that happens? The meteorite starts mutating everything around it, including the Gardners. This being a Lovecraft story, expect unspeakable horrors to ensue. Cosmic, unspeakable horrors. Knowing Richard Stanley, he's probably going to put everyone through the wringer. For Nicolas Cage these days, it's probably just another Thursday.

The movie will be produced by SpectreVision's Daniel Noah, Josh C. Waller, Lisa Whalen and Elijah Wood. Timur Bekbosunov, Johnny Chang, Emma Lee and Peter Wong will executive produce for ACE Pictures. Stacy Jorgensen will executive produce for SpectreVision.

"Lovecraft is the dark father of modern horror," SpectreVision partner Daniel Noah said. "And we have been searching for an adaptation that captures the true scope of his cosmic dread for years. Richard Stanley – a wizard in his own right – will at long last bring Lovecraft's humbling power to the screen unfiltered."

CEO of Ace Pictures Entertainment Johnny Chang added, "ACE Pictures Entertainment is thrilled to finance and co-produce COLOR OUT OF SPACE, our second collaboration with SpectreVision. The adaptation by Richard Stanley is outstanding and unique, a perfect canvas for Nicolas Cage's inimitable acting style. We are tremendously excited to continue our partnership with SpectreVision and their signature style of genre."

Principal photography is expected to begin next month.

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