So, what news bits were revealed during the video? For starters, it seems that the show is going to be a more racially diverse affair than the novels. A fan asked if there would be more people of color in the show, and the Rices confirmed that indeed there would be. For starters, the characters of Queen Akasha and King Enkil (the original vampires from ancient Egypt) would likely be POC, although they were not in the novels. The only positive that the Queen of the Damned movie produced might have been casting Aliyah in the role of Akasha; she brought more diversity to the Vampire Chronicles, and was maybe the only thing good thing that movie produced.
Also, the Rices clarified that only eleven books from the Vampire Chronicles from the fourteen volume series will be included. This is because the novels Merrick (2000), Blackwood Farm (2002), and Blood Canticle (2003) include characters from Anne Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches series of books, which is part of a separate media deal at the moment. Chris Rice described the contents of those books as being “frozen.”
Truth be told, although technically those three books were labeled as part of the Vampire Chronicles, they really mainly dealt with characters from the Mayfair Witches saga. Those books might be turned into a television series themselves at some point, but the Rices stressed they would be way down the line.
Anne Rice said that there might be the potential for spin-off series if the show is successful. For example, the non Lestat-centric books The Vampire Armand and Blood and Gold, which focused on the vampires Armand and Marius, would make sense for something like this. Elements of those two books would be used for the current series, but since the focus is on Lestat for this show, a potential spin-off would make more sense down the line. The Rices added that while they wouldn’t cast a 17 year-old to play the vampire Armand (who although 500 years old, was a teen when he was a made) they would try to find a youthful looking actor who fit the physical description of the character more than Antonio Banderas did in the film version of Interview with the Vampire.
When a fan asked if the new series would fully embrace the LGBT aspects of the novels when transferring them to television, the Rices confirmed they would all be there for certain. Although Rice’s vampires don’t have sex, all the eroticism implied by the blood exchange would be there, regardless of gender. Christopher Rice added “Lestat lives in an era that is very free of labels; in the beginning before he becomes a vampire (in the 1800s), he is very much bisexual. And we plan to depict that.”
For the full one-hour Q&A on the Vampire Chronicles TV series, you can check out the video below:
What do you want to see in a Vampire Chronicles television series? Be sure to let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.
Images: Warner Brothers / Alfred A. Knopf
