Ron Howard at work on THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT

Oh, dear. Word is, Ron Howard is planning a movie based on the Image Comics series, The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft. Here he is, talking up the project to the LA Times.

"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 me during an interview for an upcoming story on a different topic. "The character is a very young Lovecraft."

The once and future Opie is actually a slightly more versatile director than people give him credit for. He can make a charming light comedy like Splash, for example, and he can make a reasonably gripping historical fiction like Apollo 13. Hand the guy a decent, middlebrow script and he can make a decent, middlebrow film. But when he tries to stretch, you can get howlers like How the Grinch Stole Christmas. A horror movie/fictionalized H.P. Lovecraft biography is several miles outside of Howard's comfort zone, and it's hard to imagine this thing working. Still, a spooky story with Lovecraft himself as the protaganist is a pretty irresistable idea...

(That Amazon link is the Call of Cthulhu featurette from a couple of years back, far and away the most faithful - and awesome - Lovecraft picture ever.)

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