Interview with the Vampire series to be “truer to the book” than Tom Cruise movie

The upcoming Interview with the Vampire AMC series is set to be more faithful to Anne Rice’s books than the 1994 movie starring Tom Cruise.

Amongst the mass amount of superhero Comic-Con news this week, somewhat smaller – but no less exciting – projects have also been providing information about their upcoming releases.

This includes the TV adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, which is set to release in October of this year. At Comic-Con, a new trailer was dropped for the series, along with other images and hints about the newest adaptation of Anne Rice’s popular gothic novel.

And among this news, it was revealed in a panel interview – with the cast and showrunners, not with the vampire – that the AMC show is planning to be a more faithful adaption of the books than the popular 1994 movie of the same name.

Interview with the Vampire series will be “truer” to Anne Rice’s book

Many will know the film of the same name, which starred Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Kirsten Dunst in one of her first roles. While the film has remained popular since its release, being an adaptation of course means that some changes were made for the big screen, changes which not every fan would have agreed with.

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The 1994 film is a great, but not perfect adaptation of Anne Rice’s work.

After Rice regained the rights to her book in 2016, there had been curiosity circulating over whether a new adaptation would be on the horizon, and AMC’s show was finally announced in 2021. And according to a panel interview with Entertainment Weekly, the show’s executive producer, Mark Johnson, the series will be “much more complete” than the movie.

Johnson said: “Interview With the Vampire is, above all else, a really beautiful love story. As a result, as opposed to the movie, the series is less plot-driven and more emotional, more character-driven.

“It all comes down to performance. With our lead actors, we have our Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and our Lestat and Louis are going to be so much more complete than the movie – not because the movie did anything wrong, but it’s only two hours and we have a lot more time than that.”

However, while the series will be truer to the books, Johnson admits that there will still be some changes, as is natural for any adaptation: “We tried to stay as true to the spirit of the book as possible, but it’s very much a modern interpretation. In many ways, our show is truer to the book than the movie was, which is ironic because Anne Rice herself wrote the screenplay to the movie.”

What is the Interview with the Vampire series about?

The series, which will span seven episodes, follows the love/hate relationship between two vampires that spans centuries, and their subsequent adoption – and vampirification – of a young girl, all of which is told in an interview with a modern-day journalist.

The show stars Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt, Jacob Anderson (who you will likely recognise from Game of Thrones) as Louis de Pointe du Lac, Bailey Bass as Claudia, and Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy.

The series will take much longer to tell its story than the movie, and because of this, the series won’t actually cover all of Rice’s novel. “We don’t even meet Claudia until later into our season. Hopefully we get a second and third season to finish the book,” Johnson added.

When and where can I watch the Interview with the Vampire series?

The Interview with the Vampire show is set tor premiere on AMC in October 2022.

But fans can also expect more vampire content to be on the way, since the upcoming series doesn’t fully cover the book. Not only does this open the gate for more seasons, but the show’s producers are also looking to create their own expanded universe based on Rice’s other books, à la the MCU.

“The books are so much fun, and they’re so different,” Johnson said in another interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“It’s hard to believe sometimes that they’re connected, but they are. While one might be about vampires and one might be about witches and one might be about God knows what, they are all connected.

“You guys will tell us whether this will be a franchise or not but I believe that this world, the Anne Rice world, is going to go on for some time on AMC.”