ABC puts a stake in The Brides of Dracula series

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Back in 2015, Riverdale / Chilling Adventures of Sabrina creator (and  CARRIE 2013 / THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN 2014 screenwriter) Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was trying to get a television series about The Brides of Dracula off the ground at NBC. It didn't happen. Earlier this year, a pilot for The Brides was being assembled at ABC, and it got further than the NBC iteration, even casting all of the brides and Dracula himself.

The brides were going to be played by Gina Torres, Katherine Reis, and Erin Richards, with Goran Višnjic playing Dracula. The show would have followed the 

trio of empowered, immortal women and the things they do to maintain wealth, prestige, legacy — and their nontraditional family.

I say "would have" because ABC has passed on the project. 

The Brides won't be happening at that network, but it is expected to be shopped around to other channels and / or streaming services. We'll have to wait and see if anyone wants to pick up this project that ABC has dropped.

Torres's character was Cleo Phillips. The leader of the trio, Cleo is "an imperious woman with a queenly manner — understandably, as she was a queen in her former life who was turned by Dracula after the death of her husband. Now a maven of New York City real estate, Cleo is challenged professionally by a mysterious newcomer — even as her ties to her sisters are dangerously fraying."

Reis would be playing the youngest bride, Lily Stevens. "Lily is a striving singer in New York City whose relationship to a news reporter threatens to tear apart her marriage to her 'sisters.' In her former life, she braved the streets of Jack the Ripper’s London, until being 'rescued' by Dracula."

The bride Richards was cast to play was Renée Pélagie, "the head of a top modeling agency in New York City, known for her torrid affairs with her beautiful female models. In her former life, she was the wife of the Marquis de Sade when she invited Dracula into her 'house of pain' and asked to be 'turned' by him."

Višnjic's Dracula would have been "left for dead at his destroyed castle in the Carpathian mountains while his three wives, Cleo, Renée, and Lily, flee to start a new life together." 

Also in the cast were Sophia Tatum as Justine Strang, an aspiring model Renée takes under her wing, "unaware that Justine may have a past with Dracula as well", and Chris Mason as Roland Grant, a real estate mogul who challenges "Queen of New York City real estate" for professional supremacy and has secret ties to Dracula.

Aguirre-Sacasa and pilot director Maggie Kiely are executive producers on the show alongside Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter of Berlanti Productions. The pilot was being produced by Warner Bros. Television and ABC Studios.