“Interview With the Vampire” novelist Anne Rice is working on her next work of art — the TV adaptation of her “The Vampire Chronicles.”
“The theatrical rights to the ‘Vampire Chronicles’ are once again in my hands, free and clear! I could not be more excited about this!” she announced Saturday on Facebook.
“A television series of the highest quality is now my dream for Lestat, Louis, Armand, Marius and the entire tribe. In this the new Golden Age of television, such a series is THE way to let the entire story of the vampires unfold.”
“The Vampire Chronicles” are a hugely popular series of novels revolving around Lestat, a fictional French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century.
Rice will not be working on the TV venture alone — her son Christopher will be developing the 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,” she said.
The series will likely begin with “The Vampire Lestat” and move forward from there. “When we sit down finally to talk to producers, we will have a fully realized vision of this project with Christopher as the executive producer at the helm. I will also be an executive producer all the way.”
Rice — who first came to fame with the best-selling gothic novel “Interview With the Vampire,” which was adapted for a big screen vehicle starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst — went on to say that Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment had optioned the series to develop motion pictures from it, and it did not work out. “It is, more than ever, abundantly clear that television is where the vampires belong,” she said.
“Over the years you all have told me how much you want to see a ‘Game of Thrones’ style faithful rendering of this material, and how much you want for the series to remain in my control,” she wrote. “Well, I have heard you. I have always heard you. What you want is what I want.
“You, the readers, made these books a success before any movie was ever made based on them, and I will never forget that fact.”