AMC Studios has officially confirmed that Anne Rice‘s Lives of the Mayfair Witches might be their second series after their Interview With the Vampire adaptation. AMC bought the rights to Rice‘s catalog last year, and are hard at work brainstorming new films and series based on her iconic fantasy novels. For Lives of the Mayfair Witches, AMC Studios is opening up a writers’ room to explore what this new series could look like.
Esta Spaulding and Michelle Ashford have been brought on board as both writers and executive producers of this potential series. Spaulding, who has worked on series like Masters of Sex and On Becoming a God in Central Florida, has an overall deal with AMC Studios, and will serve as showrunner if the series is greenlit. Lives of the Mayfair Witches would reunite Spaulding and Ashford, as the latter also worked on Masters of Sex, as well as The Pacific and John Adams.
The current synopsis would focus on an intuitive young neurosurgeon who discovers that she is the heir to a family of witches. Grappling with her newfound powers and identity crisis, she must battle against a deadly force that has haunted her family for generations. Lives of the Mayfair Witches is a trilogy of books that were published in the 90s, that also includes some crossover with The Vampire Chronicles. This would be the first on-screen adaptation of Rice‘s bestselling Gothic supernatural novels.
Dan McDermott, AMC‘s President of Original Programming, said of the series, “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. We take our responsibility to deliver compelling television to both existing and new fans of this material incredibly seriously, as we move deliberately to develop these titles into a new franchise and universe for AMC+ and AMC.”
Development is already well underway for the Interview With the Vampire series, which just recently announced that fan favorite Lestat will be played by Sam Reid. Additionally, director Alan Taylor has signed on to direct two episodes of the eight-part series. He’s definitely a steal, as his work on Mad Men and Game of Thrones shows that his adaptable vision and style will translate well to AMC‘s adaptation. Perry Mason‘s Rolin Jones has been announced as the creator, writer, and showrunner for this series.
Interview with the Vampire is slated for a 2022 premiere on AMC. We’ll keep you up-to-date on the planned Lives of the Mayfair Witches series.
via Collider