Game of Thrones fans know Alan Taylor as the man who chopped off Ned Stark’s head in “Baelor,” but now he has an exciting new gig: directing the first couple episodes of Interview With The Vampire, AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s classic 1976 vampire novel.
Interview With The Vampire — both the book and the 1994 movie — have had a huge effect on the vampire genre; for better or worse, you don’t get Twilight or The Vampire Diaries without Interview and it’s more angsty take on bloodsuckers. Now, an Interview TV show is the first of several series AMC plans to make from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, which number 13 novels and counting. AMC also has the rights to Rice’s Mayfair Witches series, so we could be in for a whole lotta spooky TV in the years to come.
Anne Rice is “on board” with changes made to Interview With The Vampire
But adaptation means changes, as Taylor explained to Den of Geek. “[Interview showrunner] Rolin Jones has made some changes that I think deepen and do some very intriguing things with the basic story,” he said. “We’re working with the Rice estate and they’re on board with it. I think we’re carrying the original appeals of the novel, but we’re also making some changes that make it worth exploring again.”
"I signed up for it because I loved her book so much. I remember I just moved to New York when I read Interview With A Vampire, and it kind of blew my mind. The feeling I got from the book was: ‘Okay, you’ve seen a bunch of vampire stories, but that’s all bullshit. Here’s the truth. This is the real thing.’"
Interview With the Vampire is about a pair of vampires — the French aristocrat Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and the neophyte Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacon Anderson) who grow a kind of vampire family for years. I suppose they would need to add some things to stretch the novel out to a whole season of television, although I wonder if at least some of the changes don’t have to do with integrating the show into whatever Anne Rice Cinematic Universe they’re planning.
Look out for Interview With The Vampire to debut on AMC sometimes in 2022.
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