Anne Rice was recently shopping around a massive television and film package for both The Vampire Chronicles and The Lives of the Mayfair Witches, you may recall, with AMC Networks acquiring the package last year and therefore landing the rights to all novels in both series.
The first to get a small-screen adaptation is “Interview With the Vampire”, which was ordered to series earlier this summer.
Huge news this morning as it’s been announced that Sam Reid will play the vampire Lestat in the new series that’s to be directed by Alan Taylor (“Mad Men”, “Game of Thrones”, “Sex and the City”, “Six Feet Under”, “Deadwood”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “Lost”).
Variety notes that the casting could represent a long-term investment in Reid on AMC’s part as “the company has the rights to all of Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles books and Lestat appears in multiple entries.”
“The book centers on the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac as he relates the story of his life to a reporter, in particular how he was turned into a vampire and then mentored by Lestat de Lioncourt.”
The “Interview With the Vampire” saga of course centers on vampires Louis and Lestat, characters played by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in the 1996 feature film directed by Neil Jordan.
“Interview With the Vampire” will be an eight-episode series with an eye toward a 2022 debut on both AMC and AMC Plus. Rolin Jones will serve as writer, executive producer, and showrunner on the series under his overall deal with AMC Studios. Mark Johnson will executive produce under his overall deal with AMC Studios as well, with Anne Rice and Christopher Rice also executive producing.
