By Lori Perkins
Before there was Twilight and True Blood, there was Louis and Lestat and the child vampire Claudia, created by Anne Rice in her iconic Vampire Chronicles series set in New Orleans. These tales were launched in the 70s and continued publication through the turn of the century, as Rice wove a second thread of a supernatural witch family into her New Orleans setting. Two decades later, her universe will finally be making it to the screen as the Interview with a Vampire series is being developed at AMC and AMC is looking into developing a second series based on her Mayfair Witches.
Esta Spaulding and Michelle Ashford, who developed the Masters of Sex TV series about Masters & Johnson, were hired as writers and executive producers for the Mayfair Witches project, with Spaulding set to serve as showrunner if the series moves forward, according to Entertainment Weekly.
"We have an enormous amount of ambition for these iconic works, which have captivated and entertained millions of fans around the world, so it is gratifying to be moving so quickly from the Interview greenlight to exploring a second series with such talented and accomplished writers and creators as Esta and Michelle," Dan McDermott, president of original programming for AMC Networks and AMC Studios, said in a statement.
Last year, AMC announced that they had bought the rights to 18 of Anne Rice’s novels and that she and her author/son Christopher Rice would be non-writing executive producers on a TV series based on her work. The vampire series is set to launch in 2022.