AMC picks up the rights to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles books

AMC already has the biggest zombie franchise in the world with The Walking Dead. It’s time to add vampires into the mix. The network has signed a deal with author Anne Rice and her son Christopher to acquire the rights to all 11 books in her Vampire Chronicles series, plus her Mayfair Witches books, which are set in the same universe.

Rice announced that she wanted to get her series made into a show years ago.  “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 to her fans at the time. “Well, I have heard you. I have always heard you. What you want is what I want.”

"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."

For a while, it looked like the project would be coming to Hulu, but that fell through and here we are.

Once upon the 1980s and 90s, Anne Rice’s take on vampires was at the bleeding edge of fandom. Her vampires were dark, brooding, dangerous, sexually fluid, and incredibly horny. The books are told from different perspectives, but the main figure is Lestat de Lioncourt, a French vampire who meets a lot of interesting people over the course of his immortal life and kills several of them.

Since the heyday of The Vampire Chronicles, vampires at large have become softer and kinder thanks to stuff like The Vampire Diaries and the Twilight series. But seasons change. Is it time for Rice’s blood-sucking sex goths to make a comeback?

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

h/t The A.V. Club