Interview With The Vampire tease shows how AMC is changing the book

With The Walking Dead set to end later this year, AMC is looking for another beloved horror property to adapt. Why not trade in zombies for vampires? The network is adapting Anne Rice’s classic novel Interview With The Vampire for the small screen, in what it hopes will be the first show in a (say it with me) Anne Rice Cinematic Universe.

The jury’s out on whether that will ever happen, but the base show looks interesting. It stars Game of Thrones veteran Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm) as Louis de Pointe du Lac, a gloomy Louisiana man who gets turned into a vampire by the wicked bloodsucker Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). They spend decades together, forming a little family unit with a younger vampire named Claudia (Bailey Bass).

Already, we’re seeing AMC tinker with Anne Rice’s source material. For instance, in the book, Louis is turned in 1791, long before electricity was widely used. But as this teaser shows, electric lights are everywhere as Lestat stalks the streets of New Orleans looking for his next victim, so the new show will happen later in time. It gives me an early 20th century vibe:

AMC’s Interview With The Vampire show is changing Louis’ age

And now, a new teaser gives us a little taste of the interview at the heart of the story. The conceit of Interview With The Vampire is that Louis is telling his tale to a journalist in the modern day. Check it out:

Louis says that he was a “33-year-old man” when he became a vampire. In the book, he was 25. For reference, Jacob Anderson is 31.

I don’t find these changes offensive…more weird. Like, if you’re going to make a period piece either way, why not just go with the original period from the books? The age thing I can understand more; if they want this to be a series, perhaps they figure that Anderson is going to age as it goes on and that eventually it’ll be harder to pass him off as eternally 25.

There’s no release date set for Interview With The Vampire as of yet, but it seems like AMC is gearing up to premiere it sometime this year.

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