Interview With The Vampire is one of the best shows on TV. An adaptation of Anne Rice's classic 1976 horror novel, it's rich, dense, exciting, funny and sexy. The first two seasons were fantastic and the third is filming right now.
In the meantime, AMC has been building up a network of shows set within the same universe. While Interview With the Vampire follows brooding bloodsuckers Louis and Lestat, Mayfair Witches acquaints us with a family of magic users. A new show, Talamasca: The Secret Order, will explore the inner workings of the secret organization that keeps tabs on all things supernatural. Jason Schwartzman will be in that one, so you know they're spending money on this.
Talamasca, which unlike Interview With The Vampire and Mayfair Witches isn't based on any Anne Rice book in particular but just generally inspired by her work, will premiere sometime in October. "It’s kind of a spy show, almost a John le Carré with elements of the supernatural in it," AMC executive Mark Johnson told Deadline. That's neat, although it raises the question: is AMC doing too much? Is the budding Anne Rice cinematic universe (or the "Immortal Universe," as AMC calls it) in danger of buckling under its own weight?
Johnson clearly doesn't think so. In fact, he sees a world with even more Anne Rice shows on the air. "I think we could do four or five," he said. "At some point, it becomes a little ridiculous, but I have a very small but incredibly gifted team, and we can keep tabs, certainly on the three we have now. I know that we could add a fourth and maybe go a little crazy with a fifth."
Hearing that has me a little nervous; I'd hate for this universe to get too big and unwieldy to the point where everything gets watered down, or where it feels like fans have to do homework in order to enjoy whatever comes next. At the least, Johnson sounds interested in connecting the shows somehow, although hopefully not to the point where you have to watch all of them to understand any of them. "Our goal is — and we’re doing it judiciously — connecting, not so much in terms of easter eggs, but connecting characters from one show to the other, because ultimately, there’s a common point that they all have," he said.
"There are big surprises already in couple of the seasons, but in the coming season of both Interview and you’ll see in Talamasca that there are some connections to these other franchises."
Mark Johnson promises he isn't shading The Walking Dead, shades The Walking Dead
It feels like four or five shows within one universe would go too far, but Johnson has drawn his own lines in his heads. He seems to take comfort in the fact that while he's contemplating a lot of TV shows airing at once, he's at least not planning direct spinoffs of any shows, so there won't be any show just called Lestat or something.
"No, I haven’t thought about characters that are broken out," Johnson said. "This is not a criticism of Walking Dead, but in a strange way, if a character is available to put into another world or his or her own show, then that means you haven’t successfully integrated them into their own franchise. The vampires Lestat and Louie are unique to Interview with a Vampire, and I don’t know how you would break them out of that world and that history. I certainly haven’t thought about, 'oh, this character is so successful, let’s give her or let’s give him their own show.'"
The Walking Dead universe has a lot of spinoffs, from Dead City, which revolves around legacy characters Maggie and Negan, to Daryl Dixon; you can probably guess who the main character of that one is. To be fair, those and other spinoffs only started up after the main series had ended, so there was no longer a chance to "successfully integrate" them.
Enthusiasm around The Walking Dead content has tapered off amidst all these spinoffs, although they still have their fans. Even if the Talamasca show isn't a spinoff of Interview With The Vampire in the same way as The Ones Who Live was a spinoff of The Walking Dead, it's still spinoff-adjacent and carries some of the same risks; e.g. it could make the universe feel bloated and spammy. So I hope Johnson and company know what they're doing.
"Our goal now is to keep both Interview and Mayfair Witches going successfully, and then premiere Talamasca, which I think is a very satisfying show," Johnson said. Fair enough...for now.
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