Before the days of Sookie Stackhouse and Stefan Salvatore, author Anne Rice revitalized the vampire genre with her wildly successful series of Vampire Chronicles books. The 12-volume anthology, which continues with this week’s release of Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, has sold well over 80 million copies. Now, 40 years after the 1976 publication of Interview With The Vampire, Rice announced on her Facebook page that she has regained the theatrical rights to the books. Better yet, she’s plotting an “open-ended series, faithfully presenting Lestat’s story as it is told in the books.”
Since Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment acquired the rights to the series in 2014, there have been multiple attempts to theatricalize Lestat and company for millennial audiences — the latest being director Josh Boone’s screenplay for an Interview remake. “Though we had the pleasure of working with many fine people in connection with this plan, it did not work out,” Rice wrote, adding, “it is, more than ever, abundantly clear that television is where the vampires belong. The author plans to write a pilot script and a detailed outline for the series with her son, Christopher, starting where the novel The Vampire Lestat takes off. She describes the concept as a “Game of Thrones style faithful rendering.”
Visual adaptations of the Vampire Chronicles series have long presented a challenge, especially for Rice, who prefers to be deeply involved in the process. 1994’s Interview With The Vampire, starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst, was a critical and commercial success, but Rice was initially opposed to Cruise playing Lestat. Later, she was left almost entirely out of consultation as Warner Brothers reduced the plots of two novels to form 2002’s Queen of the Damned, which was largely regarded as a cinematic failure despite Aaliyah’s iconic posthumous performance. With Rice back at the helm, she promises the forthcoming project will satisfy long-time fans of the series.
Credits
Text Salvatore Maicki
Photo Youtube