Anne Rice Shares New Vampire Chronicles TV Show Details

For the past couple of years, Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment had been working on a new feature film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, but that project fell through. This past weekend, author Anne Rice informed her followers that the rights to The Vampire Chronicles are now back with her, and she's planning to adapt her popular series of novels for the small screen.

Since making the announcement, there's been a renewed interest and excitement in the The Vampire Chronicles. The overwhelming response to the news — from fans and the press — has delighted Rice. She's now more eager than ever to "get a pilot script written" with her son, Christopher Rice (who will serve as the show's executive producer).

"We're in the planning stage right now," Anne Rice explained to EW. "Emails are flying back and forth with all our different ideas about how we want to do it. Nothing is firm yet, except that we do want to start with the second book in the series, The Vampire Lestat. We want to start with him and his birth as a vampire, and go on from there. And at this point, tentatively, I see two seasons, maybe, to do the entire book."

If all goes well after two seasons, she has even more ambitious plans for the series. "Oh yeah, we want to do an open-ended series that can just take it all the way," she explained. "And you know, there are something like 14 books now, and ideally, we would love to bring [the series] up to the present time, to Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis or whatever book is next after that."

Interview with the Vampire (1994) - Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Tom Cruise, Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Brad Pitt and Golden Globe-nominee Kirsten Dunst are among the undead in this spellbinding adaptation of Anne Rice's (Queen of the Damned, Exit to Eden) bestselling horror novel. When an ambitious reporter agrees to interview a man who claims to have been a vampire since the 18th century, he hears a hypnotic, shocking, violent, moving and erotically charged tale, detailing what it was like existing for the past two-hundred years as one of the living dead. The powerhouse cast also includes Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominee Antonio Banderas; Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominee Stephen Rea (V for Vendetta, The Reaping); Christian Slater; and Thandie Newton (The Pursuit of Happyness, Crash).

The film was directed by Academy Award-winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The End of the Affair), written by Anne Rice, and produced by David Geffen (Little Shop of Horrors, Personal Best).

Interview with the Vampire was released in November 1994 and went on to earn $223.7 million at the worldwide box office and two Academy Award nominations (Best Art Direction, Best Original Score).