It was over two years ago that Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment optioned the rights to Anne Rice‘s Vampire Chronicles with the intent to make film adaptations from the popular novels. Now, the author has revealed that the theatrical rights to the books are back in her hands, and she plans to bring the story to television.

Rice posted to her Facebook page that she and her writer son Christopher Rice will be developing a pilot script, as well as a detailed outline, for an open-ended Game of Thrones-style television series that will be faithful to the tale of the vampire Lestat. This is the opposite of the potential Twilight-like franchise Universal reportedly had been aiming for when they held the rights.

Rice plans to executive produce with her son, who will also be the showrunner on the planned television series, which does not yet have a network attached.

Though 1976’s Interview With The Vampire was the first book published in The Vampire Chronicles, Rice says they will likely begin with the second book, The Vampire Lestat (1985).

Interview With The Vampire hit the big screen back in 1994 as a Rated R film starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise that did well at the box office. In 2002, Warner Brothers skipped the second book, The Vampire Lestat, and instead made a sequel that incorporated elements of that book and the third novel, Queen Of The Damned, which was not well-received. Since then, the film franchise laid dormant, with plans for a Tales Of The Body Thief movie falling through in 2013.

Rice, the 75-year-old best-selling author who singlehandedly took the vampire genre to a new level with her novels, is readying to embark this week on a book tour for her latest Vampire novel in the series, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, a direct follow-up to 2014’s Prince Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles.

Here’s Rice’s full statement from Facebook about the TV series….

[Source: Anne Rice FB]

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