Anne Rice Vampire Movies Coming From Brian Grazer, Alex Kurtzman, And Roberto Orci
It’s been 20 years since Neil Jordan’s film version ofInterview With the Vampiresaw Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt sucking blood, and now Universal is getting back into monsters in a big way. Not only are Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan spearheading a relaunch of the old Universal Monsters line, beginning with a newMummymovie, the studio has snapped up rights to all ofAnne Rice’sVampire Chroniclesbooks.
So the whole 13-book series starting withInterview With the Vampireand ending with the forthcomingPrince Lestatnovel, and the screenplay forTales of the Body Thief, adapted by Rice’s son Christopher Rice, all belong to Universal for the time being. Read about plans for new Anne Rice vampire movies below.
The Wrapreports thatBrian Grazerwill produce for Imagine Entertainment withAlex KurtzmanandRoberto Orci, whileBobby Cohenwill executive produce.
Yeah, we thought Kurtzman and Orci were split except for their TV projects and a couple existing films, too. But this is technically an existing project, because Universal has been toying with these adaptations for a while.
Reports of Universal getting into business with Anne Rice actually go back years; in 2009 reports came out that the studio had picked up rights to the author’s books. Imagine optioned thatBody Thiefscript a couple years back, too. There was even a point when Robert Downey Jr. was said to be attached to play Lestat in a new film based onInterview With the Vampire.
Regardless, nothing was done with them at the time. Now, with Imagine Entertainment and the old Kurtzman/Orci producing team working on the project, we could see pretty swift movement. (Ron Howard has flirted with monster movies before. Could he end up directing one of the Rice adaptations? Given Imagine’s involvement, it’s not a stretch, but he has at least 3 movies in the pike.)
Ironically, the Kurtzman and Morgan-producedMummyreboot sounds like an action-adventur
e film, which is pretty far from the original Universal Monsters. But Anne Rice’s vampire books have a really romantic angle to them. TheVampire Chroniclesfilms could end up being better standard-bearer
s for the old Universal Monsters identity than the new Uni Monsters films will be!
