Michael K. Williams is always a memorable addition to any project, and his next will find the actor returning to HBO where he's had major roles in The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, and The Night Of. Williams is slated to take on a leading role in Lovecraft Country, an upcoming hour-long HBO drama series from GET OUT's Jordan Peele based upon the novel of the same name by Matt Ruff.
Lovecraft Country follows Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Major) as he joins up wth his friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollet-Bell) and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. "Thus begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback." Michael K. Williams will play Atticus' father, Montrose Freeman, a hard headed and secretive man who has always believed that you can't live in a fantasy world, "which is why he despises his son’s pulp novels. Most of the books on his shelf are nonfiction, history, and political theory. The guys at the local bar call him a communist, but today we’d just call him conscious."
Jordan Peele knew that "Lovecraft Country" had the "potential to be unlike anything else on television" when he first read it, and soon brought the project to the attention of Misha Green, the creator of WGN America's Underground. Green will be penning the pilot episode as well as serving as show-runner, with Jordan Peele stepping in as executive producer and Yann Demange (WHITE BOY RICK) helming the pilot episode.
A synopsis of "Lovecraft Country" via Amazon:
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.
At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.
Michael K. Williams will next be seen in THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT alongside Chris Evans, Haley Bennett, Michiel Huisman, Greg Kinnear, and Ben Kingsley. The Gideon Raff film revolves around the rescue and transport of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1981 and will hit theaters in 2019.