HBO will not air Lovecraft Country for a second season.In a Friday announcement, the network confirmed the news. Lovecraft Country was adapted by Matt Ruff from his 2016 novel. The book, written by H.P. Lovecraft used cosmic horror concepts to fuel stories set in the American South during the 1950s."We won't be moving forward with Lovecraft Country 2." We are grateful to the talented cast and crew and Misha Green for creating this groundbreaking series. "And to our fans, thank you very much for joining us on this adventure," HBO stated in a statement Friday (via The Hollywood Reporter).Green, Lovecraft's showrunner didn't respond to the cancellation, but she did give viewers a glimpse at the "Season 2 Bible," which was shared by her on Friday following the news. The second season's title would have been "Supremacy" and was supposed to introduce viewers to the reorganized "Sovereign States of America."The tweet by Green suggests that the Season 2 journey would have taken place along the "Whitelands" section of the US map. This is the area between northern Texas and southern Pennsylvania. It's only a red dot, a red X and who knows what the route would have looked like?Although it's a teaser, the most striking feature of Green's tweet may be her choice of hashtag. The hashtag "#noconfederate", which is a reference to a social media campaign created after the announcement by HBO of Confederate, was used.It was pitched as an alt history sci-fi drama. It took place in a world in which the U.S. south had seceded after the Civil War. It would have been picked up by generations later and introduced a new North America in which the nation established by former U.S. States evolved slavery into a modern institution.Confederate was to have been spearheaded by Game of Thrones executive producers David Benioff, and D.B. Both Weiss and Benioff are white. The #noconfederate pressure campaign was created to protest HBO's support of the idea. It worked. After the announcement of the show in 2017, the network was quiet and the project was eventually canceled in 2020.This brings us back to Green’s tweet. #noconfederate was created for one purpose only: To protest the existence a poorly-conceived TV project. This was especially in light of criticisms directed at Thrones. It is difficult to see Green's use it as a response to Lovecraft's cancellation as anything but a swipe at HBO.Confederate did not end up happening. However, it is possible that HBO was not cowed by the criticism. Only acknowledged that the original announcement had been poorly handled. It was only after Benioff & Weiss had left a Star Wars project that was high-profile and was apparently stalled by a deal with Netflix that news broke that it wasn't happening anymore that it became known that it was no longer happening in 2020.This means that HBO didn't close the book on Confederate as it seemed to have listened to critics. The use of the hashtag by Green is a reminder of HBO's recent fraught history with an alt-history project, which it was willing to continue with until other business considerations emerged.Green will be fine. Green will be fine. There are many other projects she is working on, including a sequel (tentatively) to Tomb Raider: Obsidian, starring Alicia Vikander.
