Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire Season 2 is going into the coffin indefinitely. AMC Networks confirmed the first series in its Anne Rice Immortal Universe, which has been filming in Prague since April, has suspended production due to the actors’ strike. On Friday, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) called a strike barring most of its 160,000 members from performing principal on-camera work such as acting. Despite filming overseas with a largely international cast, Interview with the Vampire includes SAG members who must stop filming during the work stoppage. Deadline first reported the news.
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The Interview with the Vampire cast includes British actors Jacob Anderson (Louis de Pointe du Lac), Assad Zaman (Rashid/Armand), and Delainey Hayles (Claudia), American actor Eric Bogosian (Daniel Molloy), and Australian actor Sam Reid (Lestat de Lioncourt). (HBO’s U.K.-shot Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is one production that will continue filming despite the SAG strike: because that show is under contract with the British actors union Equity, rather than SAG, filming can proceed as planned.)
In May — days after the Writers Guild of America announced its members were going on strike until the writers’ union reaches a fair deal with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP) — AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan said the company was “very well positioned” to manage the writers’ work stoppage. During an earnings call, Dolan said AMC is in good shape “through this year and into next year, so we have no real concerns about the writers strike at this point,” according to Deadline. Dolan’s comments came before Hollywood faced its first dual strike since 1960 with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA taking to the picket lines.
AMC has banked the upcoming six-episode first season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, premiering in September, and the final six episodes of Fear the Walking Dead, slated to air on the network this fall. It also completed filming on The Walking Dead: Rick & Michonne, which is scheduled to premiere some time in 2024.
The network will present The Walking Dead Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2023 this weekend, but without any cast members or showrunners. AMC also planned to bring first looks at Interview with the Vampire Season 2 and Orphan Black: Echoes to the convention, but both of those panels have been canceled.
A sensuous, contemporary adaptation of Rice’s revolutionary gothic novel, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire follows Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson), Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid) and Claudia’s (Bass) epic story of love, blood, and the perils of immortality, as told to journalist Daniel Molloy (Bogosian). The 8-episode second season will be set in Europe with Oscar and Emmy Award-winning producer Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) and showrunner Rolin Jones (Perry Mason, Friday Night Lights) executive producing.
