Looks like another one of Anne Rice‘s vampire tales will be making its way to the big screen.

Imagine Entertainment has optioned the rights to Rice’s The Tale of the Body Thief, the fourth novel in the author’s popular Vampire Chronicles book series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writing/producing duo behind 2009’s Star Trek and the Transformers films, will produce the project along with Imagine, the company run by producer Brian Grazer and and filmmaker Ron Howard. Lee Patterson will be working on the screenplay.

Yeah, because there really is no better person to help spearhead an adaptation of an Anne Rice novel than one Christopher Columbus.

Joking aside, Variety is reporting that the director’s shingle 1492 Pictures are backing a take on Rice’s Christ The Lord: Out Of Egypt. The film will be helmed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, with a screenplay he penned alongside Betsy Nowrasteh.

Back in April, IDW Publishing announced the release of a new six-issue miniseries comic book adaptation of Anne Rice‘s 1996 novel Servant of the Bones.

Now, just before the series launch on August 24, 2011, the publisher has given io9 an exclusive preview of the first issue.

In Servant of the Bones, Azriel is an immortal spirit who is bound to the gold-encased bones of his mortal body. Throughout the story, he struggles to understand whether he is a ghost, genie, demon or angel. He shares his story with the reader as he travels from an ancient Babylon of royal plots and religious upheavals to Europe during the Black Death and on to the modern world in New York City. Amidst the towers of Manhattan, he finds himself in confrontation with his own human memories and the dark forces that have sought to condemn him to a life of evil and destruction.

Bloody Disgusting has confirmed today that Robert Downey Jr is in close talks to play the vampire Lestat in Universal Studios’ planned reboot of the film franchise of Anne Rice‘s Vampire Chronicles.

Rice’s vampire books were previously adapted for the big screen in 1994 with Neil Jordan’s Interview With The Vampire, which starred Tom Cruise as the beautiful blond vamp Lestat (Brad Pitt played the vampire Louis), and then in 2002 with Queen of the Damn, in which Stuart Townsend took over the Lestat role.

Before the Twilight phenomenon, the books of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles were the ultimate in vampire stories next to Dracula, with Lestat being the most desirable of the undead. Fans might remember how badly Rice took the news of Cruise being cast as Lestat in Interview and severely criticized the choice (after seeing the film, she retracted her statements).

Since nabbing the lead in the first Iron Man film, Downey has seemed invincible. It’s not hard to imagine that he can pull off just about any role handed to him. But, Lestat? That just doesn’t seem to add up.