Director Richard Stanley still on track to make Color Out of Space with SpectreVision

It’s been a minute since EW broke the news that Hardware and Dust Devil director Richard Stanley had struck a deal with horror production company SpectreVision to adapt H.P. Lovecraft’s story The Color Out of Space for the big screen. In fact, it’s been eight months and precious little has been heard since about the film, which would be Stanley’s first feature since he was fired from 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau.

So, has the director’s attempt to turn Lovecraft’s tale of a meteor which drives people insane become lost in some development hellscape? Apparently not. Speaking on this week’s episode of horror podcast Shock Waves, SpectreVision cofounders Daniel Noah, Josh C. Waller, and Elijah Wood made clear the film remains very much a priority for them.

“He’s working with artists right now… so he can show other people what he’s seeing in his head,” said Waller about Stanley’s progress on the film. “The cinematographer that he’s going to be working with, Karim Hussain (We Are Still Here, Hobo with a Shotgun), [he] and Richard have been talking about this project for years, and I think a large part of how it’s going to be visualized will be through experimental-types of cinematography that they can blend in with the images.”

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Noah conceded that getting the movie into production had not been made easier by Stanley’s somewhat colorful reputation nor by the problems inherent in adapting Lovecraft.

“The first thing to overcome with is just the fears that people have in the business about him, because of all the stories about him,” Noah said. “[I tell people] ‘You’ve got to meet the guy and you’ll see, he’s saner than we are.’ And also Lovecraft [is a difficult sell] because it’s about intangibles. Yeah, it’s hard — but we’ll get there.”