The Hulu adaptation of Anne Rice‘s ‘The Vampire Chronicles’ novel series has taken a major step forward with the appointing of Dee Johnson as showrunner. Johnson has an extensive background in television as both a writer and producer, starting in 1993 on the prime time soap ‘Melrose Place’. From there, she went on to work on ‘ER’, ‘Commander in Chief’, ‘Army Wives’, ‘Southland’, ‘The Good Wife’, ‘Rizzoli & Isles’, ‘Boss’, ‘Nashville’, and most recently NatGeo’s ‘Mars’. She replaces Bryan Fuller who departed the project last year.
Her hiring was announced by Christopher Rice, Anne’s son and an accomplished gothic author himself, who will serve as a writer and executive producer on ‘The Vampire Chronicles’. As he wrote on Facebook:
“To The Vampire Chronicles, she brings with her a deep love of the material, a sterling reputation for professionalism and vast reservoirs of experience in all aspects of the television industry, ranging from creating worlds through green-screen to finding the perfect mix of elements needed to execute the complex visions of creators from other fields. In our first meetings with Dee, she spoke with moving eloquence and clarity about the characters and relationships that define this series, their outsider perspectives and their moral dilemmas – all the elements that make The Vampire Chronicles a probing exploration of cosmic and spiritual questions perfectly suited for adaptation in the era of peak T.V. Character and texture.”
You can read his entire post below:
Reportedly, the first season of the series will adapt ‘The Vampire Lestat’, the second novel in Rice’s series, the first being ‘Interview with the Vampire’, which was adapted as a feature film in 1994, with Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst starring. There are fourteen novels in the series, plus additional material. This show could run for a long time!
It looks like work on ‘The Vampire Chronicles’ is just beginning in earnest so it could be over a year before it arrives. Check back or more information as it is released.
