Filmmaker and University of Kansas professor Kevin Willmott is pictured in this file photo from November 2011.

HBO’s upcoming speculative series “Confederate” has drawn a lot of attention recently — with Kevin Willmott, the Lawrence-based filmmaker and University of Kansas professor, drawn into the fray.

The high-concept drama from “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss will take place in an alternative America where the Confederacy successfully seceded from the Union and in which slavery still exists in the Southern states, HBO announced earlier this month. Along with criticism over the series’ provocative premise and concerns that a project about modern-day slavery would be helmed by two white men, “Confederate” has also drawn comparisons to Willmott’s 2004 film “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America.”

Written and directed by Willmott, the critically acclaimed mockumentary also imagines an America in which the South won the Civil War. The KU professor of film and media studies responded to the controversy Wednesday in an email to the Journal-World, saying, “Unfortunately I cannot speak on the subject because I am currently involved in legal action.”

Director Kevin Willmott recreates a scene from D.W. Griffith's The

Willmott told the Kansas City Star earlier this month that he and “C.S.A.” executive producer Spike Lee planned to speak with their attorney, but declined to comment further.

“C.S.A.” was widely lauded at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and was shown in theaters the following year. Willmott’s other projects include the 2014 Wilt Chamberlain biopic “Jayhawkers” and the Lee-directed, Willmott-penned “Chiraq,” which earned rave reviews in 2015 for its satire of gun violence in contemporary Chicago.

HBO’s “Confederate” is reportedly set to go into production after “Game of Thrones” ends its run next summer. Nichelle Tramble Spellman (whose credits include “Justified” and “The Good Wife”) and “Empire” producer Malcolm Spellman will join Benioff and Weiss as executive producers.

The showrunners have since addressed the controversy surrounding “Confederate,” with Weiss acknowledging that the series will require a different approach from “Game of Thrones,” according to reporting by Vulture.

“We know that the elements in play in a show like ‘Confederate’ are much more raw, much more real,” he said, “and people come into them much more sensitive and more invested than they do with a story about a place called Westeros, which none of them had ever heard of before they read the books or watched the show.”