The zombies from The Walking Dead are about to welcome a whole new bunch of undead pals to the AMC family. On Thursday, the network announced that it has greenlit a brand-new Interview With the Vampire TV series. The news comes just over one year after AMC announced that it had acquired the rights to two of Anne Rice’s bestselling book series: the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches, which include a total of 18 books.
While it’s not the first adaptation of Rice’s work—Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst most notably played a trio of bloodsuckers in Neil Jordan’s 1994 adaptation of Interview With the Vampire; its 2002 sequel, Queen of the Damned, was far less notable—it does hopefully mark the end of a long road for her works to see a small-screen treatment. After years of seeing the rights bounce around, Rice announced in 2016 that she and her son Christopher would be working on a television series. In early 2018, Hannibal’s Bryan Fuller became attached for a potential Hulu series. As it stands now, Anne and Christopher Rice will remain on as executive producers, and playwright-turned-screenwriter Rolin Jones will serve as the show’s creator, showrunner, and executive producer.
“In 1973, a grieving mother and extraordinary writer began what would become the finest Vampire novel ever written (all respects to Mr. Stoker),” Jones, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2006 for his play The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, said in a statement. “Nearly 50 years later we know what’s expected of us. We know how much this book and the ones that follow mean to their massive fan base. We feel you over our shoulders as we tend the Savage Garden. Louis and Lestat are coming out of hiding and we can’t wait to re-unite them with you.”
An initial order for a first season of eight episodes has been ordered, and is expected to premiere in 2022.
