Although it only made for one successful film - Interview With The Vampire - Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles was something of a publishing hit during the '90s after the film's release.
The other film made out of the series - The Queen of the Damned - was pretty heavily panned on its release in 2002 and that was pretty much it for Rice's adaptations. However, a Facebook post from Rice yesterday evening confirmed that a new TV series being developed and that Rice now has the theatrical rights to the entire Vampire Chronicles series.
"My son Christopher Rice and I will be developing a pilot script and a detailed outline for an open ended series, faithfully presenting Lestat’s story as it is told in the books, complete with the many situations that readers expect to see. We will likely begin with “The Vampire Lestat” and move on from there."
All told, there's been ten novels in the Vampire Chronicles, beginning with Interview With The Vampire - originally released in 1976 - up to 2014's Prince Lestat. This isn't the first time Rice has talked about a television series for her novels, either.
In 2003, Rice dismissed the adaptation of Queen Of The Damned and said that she actively encouraged Warner Bros. not to make a film out of it and that a television series format would be more suited to her work. Whether or not any of the television studios will pick up Vampire Chronicles remains to be seen.
The long-running Vampire Diaries is still reasonably popular, however HBO's True Blood went flying off the deep end in its final series. Other than that, vampire stories have been largely written off as being out of date, thanks in part to Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. Neil Jordan, however, is working more in television nowadays and he was the only director who seemed to have a grip on Rice's work.
Would you watch a Vampire Chronicles TV series? Let us know in the comments!
