Josh Boone has turned in a draft of Interview with the Vampire

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Screenwriter/director Josh Boone is a really busy guy, with the success of his tragic teen romance film THE FAULT IN OUR STARS having taken him in some unexpected directions. He's developing an epic, multi-film adaptation of Stephen King's THE STAND and an adaptation of King's REVIVAL, he's set to write and direct the X-MEN spin-off NEW MUTANTS, and Universal Pictures has handed the reins of their plan to build a franchise based on author Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles over to him.

Boone recently took to his Instagram account to reveal the cover page of his screenplay INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, which he has written with Jill Killington. The April 2016 date on the cover indicates that he and Killington turned the script in to Universal last month, which could be a huge step forward for the project if the studio likes what the writers have done with the material.

Also worth noting is that the script isn't a straight adaptation of Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire, which was previously brought to the big screen back in 1994, but a mixture of elements from that novel and the second book in the series, The Vampire Lestat. Elements of The Vampire Lestat and the third book in the series, The Queen of the Damned, were mashed together for the 2002 film QUEEN OF THE DAMNED.

Rice has written over a dozen Vampire novels, so there are certainly plenty of stories there to create a film franchise out of. If the Vampire Chronicles do start moving toward production at Universal, here's hoping the films will be more along the lines of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 1994 than the disappointing QUEEN OF THE DAMNED.

Of course, the casting of Lestat will be a huge part of making sure these films work, and Boone has also made it clear who he thinks should follow in the footsteps of Tom Cruise and Stuart Townsend to become the new Lestat. He posted a picture of Jared Leto on his Twitter account with the caption "Lestat – there can be only one. #JaredLeto"