The CW's New The Lost Boys Pilot Finds Its Leads

Branden Cook, Lincoln Younes, and Ruby Cruz have been tapped to lead the new pilot for The Lost Boys from The CW. Heather Mitchell (Scandal, Still Star-Crossed) and Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, iZombie) will produce the series, which is based on the popular 1987 movie of the same name. Around the time Thomas was wrapping production on iZombie and heading to Hulu to do a new season of Veronica Mars, the buzzy Lost Boys had lost steam, and the pilot never got off the ground. This is its second iteration, because while the original pitch might not have been exactly what The CW was looking for, the network liked the talent involved and the idea of capitalizing on the popular property.

The series, were it to go forward, would be the first live-action follow-up to The Lost Boys in about a decade. There were two direct-to-video sequels -- Lost Boys: The Tribe and Lost Boys: The Thirst, which were explicitly set in the same timeline as the original movie. There have also been two comic book miniseries from DC: Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs, a prequel to The Tribe, and Lost Boys, a 2016 miniseries that also featured the Frog Brothers, characters from the original film.

Deadline, who broke the casting news, also got a brief series synopsis and some character descriptions from Warner Bros. Television. While the new series will have a lot of similarities to the movies, it seems from these descriptions that it will be set in a similar-but-distinct timeline, not unlike the approach The CW has taken with the remakes of Charmed and Roswell. You can see the descriptions below:

In The Lost Boys, written by Mitchell and Thomas and directed by Marcos Siega, when a mother and her Gen Z sons, one played by Cook, move to the seaside town where she grew up, they discover there's a sinister reason the local cool kids sleep all day, party all night, never grow up and never get old. Family bonds are tested as the brothers find themselves on opposite sides of a mythological struggle. Based on the 1987 cult classic that revolutionized how we think about vampires.

Cook plays Garrett, the older of the two brothers who have moved with their mom to the North Carolina seaside community. He is a version of the Michael character in the movie, which was played by Jason Patric.

Younes plays Benjamin, the charismatic leader of the gang of vampires in the town. It is a version of the David character played in the movie by Kiefer Sutherland.

Cruz plays Elsie, a version of Jami Gertz's character Star in the movie, who sparks with the new guy in town, Garrett.

Cook is essentially a brand new actor to American audiences, although he will soon appear in an upcoming Lena Dunham project called Industry. Younes appeared in the ABC series Grand Hotel, while Cruz has been on the Stephen King adaptation Castle Rock.

There is no set date for the pilot to begin production.