Tag Archives: anne rice

Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles Optioned by Paramount Television and Anonymous Content – Dread Central

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vampchronfic:

Mostly the same information as the Looper article with a few added tidbits.

“It is undeniable that Anne Rice has created the paradigm in which all vampire stories are measured against. The rich and vast world she has created with The Vampire Chronicles is unmatched and sophisticated with 90’s Gothic undertones that will be perfectly suited to captivate audiences, … We are thrilled to collaborate with Anne, Christopher, and the team at Anonymous Content on this epic series.” – Amy Powell, President, Paramount TV. 

IT’S maybe possibly like 2 molecules closer to HAPPENING!

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“Together with our partners at Paramount Television, we are embarking on a fantastic journey with Anne and Christopher Rice to bring Anne’s unparalleled imagination to television at the moment when the medium is experiencing a global apex in the demand for the most outstanding, exciting, and heightened premium dramatic programming”, says Anonymous Content’s David Kanter. “The Vampire Chronicles, in its entirety, is not only a phenomenally complex universe of storytelling, it is also a world-wide readership whose connections to the books and their author are deep and abiding. It is a tremendous responsibility to help bring the books to television, and we are thrilled to have this opportunity.”

^OK IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS PEOPLE ARE LEGIT VC FANS. That’s a requirement, in my mind. Are they fan enough to help pull off a mostly faithful-to-canon adaptation? As my Dad says, ‘the proof is in the pudding.’

I checked out the Anonymous Content website, and they seem to be able to pull off a wide range of projects. From commercials to music vids to movies like the Revenant, which I still haven’t seen but I’ve heard great things about, I think they have a generally solid mix of glitz & glamour and dirt and grunge and intellectual stimulation and yes, even some comic relief, all things I think we need in VC. Amy Powell is right, VC is “sophisticated with 90’s Gothic undertones”, so where movie!QOTD certainly USED 90′s Gothic aesthetics, I would recommend that Paramount and Anonymous Content should watch that movie and see what parts worked, and what parts didn’t. Along with movie!IWTV and Lestat the Musical. 

BTW Anonymous Content did the following which I really enjoy…

Also, re: the story line, from CBR.com: 

Anne Rice Plots Vampire Chronicles TV Series:

Anne Rice previously noted that the series likely will not touch on the events of “Interview with a Vampire,” but will instead pick up with its sequel “The Vampire Lestat.”

So it will start w/ TVL. Makes sense. 

@firelight-fading had done a great breakdown of stuff directly said by AR re: the story line of the TV series, go check out the post with that info, bc I would bet that AR is sticking to her guns on all points. Would we expect anyone to be able to bully her to compromise on her vision? NOPE.

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Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles Optioned by Paramount Television and Anonymous Content – Dread Central

Anne Rice said, in the comments of one of the latest posts, that Holliday Grainger (Lucrezia Borgia in “The Borgias”) would be a perfect Bianca or a perfect Gabrielle! Ah, the post was about her asking what we (People of the page) were doing. And down below Rice’s comment, Caleb Landry Jones has been suggested as Armand! What do you think?

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I don’t have an opinion on any of these, could work! She seems a little young to play Gabrielle, but it could work. 

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I remember that @gingerhairedimmortal-archived, an Armand RPer, had used Caleb Landry Jones as a face claim, so you might want to check out their archive for more on that.

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I saw a few articles saying she was eyeballing Stephen Amell for Lestat, but she’s gonna be REALLY disappointed if she actually wants Stephen as Lestat. He’s the lead actor in an already popular and not ending anytime soon show, Arrow. He just wouldn’t have time for it, especially since Lestat would ALSO be the lead of TVC show.

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Well Green Arrow has been on for like 5 seasons and who knows, it might end in time to cast him!

My workwife authorized this meme ;D 

(more thoughts on Stephen Amell to follow in a reblog later)

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vampires-and-witches:

jeezycreezysuperstar:

I met a photographer in New Orleans who said Anne Rice told him she started dressing flashier because Elvis came to her in a dream and told her to. God bless Anne Rice.

You can really see the before and after of Ghost-Elvis fashion advice

^X by @textsfromthevampire

This casting thing is really stressing me out. I’ve come to realize that my headcanon of lestat is much different from atleast the ppl on the VC Facebook… I see him much less masculine than a lot of ppl want, I think a part of this is all the part on tumblr makes them all a lot more feminine and beautiful which I really like. AR is suggesting these big hairy guys and FB and I just think.. nooo. Also, is she really catering her audience to fb? Does she know the amount of young ppl that read vc?

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*hugs* Sorry this casting stuff is stressing you out, Anon. I feel ya, some of the POTP’s suggestions are really so out there I wonder how they read the same books I/we did. Some of their headcanons are also… laughable at best and downright offensive at worst, but I’m not going there.

TL;DR: I don’t think AR and CR are that easily influenced by the suggestions they ask for on FB. They’re probably trying to generate and maintain the hype so that as they make their rounds looking for a producer/showrunner/etc., they can point at the fanbase that wants it! I think they also like the attention and enthusiasm (who wouldn’t??!). 

As with her writing, AR will cater a VC adaptation to her own tastes primarily, but thankfully she’s been very public about standing her ground re: making the current adaptation as faithful to canon as possible. 

Anon: “I see [Lestat as] much less masculine than a lot of ppl want, I think a part of this is all the part on tumblr makes them all a lot more feminine and beautiful which I really like.”

[I think you meant “…all the fanart on tumblr…”] Yes, the fanart we have is great! It has a wide range, the idea of what’s feminine and masculine is somewhat subjective.

IMO, this is more feminine: (gonna post a little bit of fanart here and if the original artists want it removed, I’ll remove it, just illustrating a point.)

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^X L/L by @claquesous, kind of androgynous to me, but one could say more feminine than masculine, too.

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^X L/L by @icestorming. Also what I would consider feminine. 

And this is more masculine:

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^X Lestat by @jodeeeart, to me, this is more heavily masculine, but there’s still some feminine elements. 

Keep in mind that finding someone who looks like fanart is asking a lot; we’ll have to give the actors a chance to prove that they can ACT like the characters, and hopefully their talent will overcome whatever physical limitations some of us are bound to disagree on (I probably have the WHAT DOES LOUIS’ HAIR REALLY LOOK LIKE??!! Debate 1-2x/month, most recently w/ @wicked-felina​ lol).

Anon: “AR is suggesting these big hairy guys and FB and I just think.. nooo.”

I haven’t seen her suggesting “big hairy guys”… I know she liked Chris Hemsworth at one point or another, and he’s big, not really that hairy to me? But he’s bulked up as Thor right now. He seemed less built up in Ghostbusters, but you make a fair point. My headcanon of Lestat is not a huge mountain of dudebro, so to speak. 

You should read @monstersinthecosmos‘s post about the VC series bc it’s got some very good points about more than the casting aspect that are worth keeping in mind. I asked permission to post a few snippets here, my emphasis added in bold:

I think the posts on FB are mostly just to get everyone excited; I’m sure they’re taking the general temperature of everyone into consideration but LIKE THE IDEA THAT MAJOR CASTING DECISIONS ARE GOING TO BE MADE FROM FACEBOOK IS JUST REALLY NAIVE AND STUPID AND IMO NOT EVEN WORTH DISCUSSING BECAUSE IT’S COMPLETELY PREPOSTEROUS.

^See, this is why I don’t go on AR’s or the OVCFB pages* that often bc it would take too much time for me to attempt to keep up with all the posts and comments, and tbh yeah, I think @monstersinthecosmos is right!

(*ppl submit links/screencaps of posts that seem to be newsworthy to me, which I really appreciate bc if it’s really something TRULY newsworthy and not just hype, I do share it here.)

BASICALLY the thing everyone needs to keep in mind is that for this to get greenlighted there has to be a viable expectation of profit.

^YES, they’re trying to generate hype and excitement in the fandom bc that’s a good thing to do when you want producers, etc., to get on board w/ your project (”Look, our audience is SCREAMING for this TV series, we have the audience READY!”) and also I think CR and AR like the attention (who wouldn’t??!). 

… this has to please and appeal to like MAINSTREAM REGULAR MORTALS who haven’t read these books. It can’t only be fanservice. 

^EXACTLY.

I’m kinda cautiously optimistic about all of this. I’m obviously super paranoid that it’s gonna suck and I would hate for it to be on some shit network, and I would also hate if they had to change it SO much that the core themes of the story are unrecognizable, but I’m also personally open to changes if it’s gonna make for a compelling show.

^AGREED.

Hit the jump for more, cut for length.

But to return to the casting thing briefly, there are ppl suggesting Brad and Tom currently when that is TOTALLY ridiculous, HELLO? they are both 50+ yrs old, not gonna happen but I would take them in cameo roles, or have Tom as the Marquis de Lioncourt *begging the universe*

Anon: “Also, is she really catering her audience to fb? Does she know the amount of young ppl that read vc?”

We are getting an influx of new VC fans from the recent books, and some of them are young ppl, and some of them find her FB page, so idk that you can divide those groups; (a) young ppl and (b) her POTP, bc there is probably some overlap. I personally couldn’t make a blanket statement like “All the POTP want X; and all the young ppl want Y” bc of that overlap and that there are plenty of other factors at play. Cultural and personal tastes in beauty being one of them.

So I’ve read books 1-3, but tbh I really don’t want to read body thief and I heard Memnoch isn’t very good. BUT I am a huge slut for Armand so can I read TVA now? Will I understand the context of stuff? I kinda already know about the coma thing but if you could write anything I need to know under the cut for spoilers that would be really great. I know it’s mostly Armand and Marius but is there Armand and Daniel in it too? I just don’t want to read about lestats body swap adventure or the devil.

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Sure, skip over to TVA! No probs on that. Don’t suffer through the body swap episode or the Bible/VC crossover if you don’t want to! Life’s too short. 

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^Kitty by @berrym [X]

We’re all selective as to what canon we’re willing to accept anyway so even those who have read TOBT and/or MTD don’t necessarily accept one or both as canon. Some ppl insist that everything published is canon. But here’s the thing, there’s “the two crossover novels Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle, which Rice herself has now disavowed,” (X @sanguinivora​) so like, even AR doesn’t demand that we accept everything as canon. At least that’s my own take on it.

TOBT: No spoilers. I don’t think Armand or Daniel are even mentioned in TOBT (I don’t have a copy nearby to check). But in their absence, it would appear that they were either A) unaware of what was happening w/ Lestat, or B) unwilling to help him. I don’t remember that ever being really developed, but Lestat does mention sometimes how it seemed like no one was WILLING to help, that they all were aware and left him to fend for himself. 

HUGE SPOILER IN MTD under the cut, you have been warned.

MTD has alot of baggage bc there were those negative reviews that came out about it, and tbh I didn’t read them bc there was an avalanche of them, so I don’t know if any of them were fair or not, but I remember that AR made alot of fiery public response about it (to put it lightly) and was using her FB POTP army against any critical reviewers, it was a dark time, so that may have soured the fandom on that book a lot. 

MTD was published in 1995 and it was supposed to be the LAST book in the series. 3 years later we got The Vampire Armand, because…………….

*****HUGE SPOILER***** 

*****YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*****

At the end of MTD, Armand believes that Lestat really went to Heaven and Hell when shown a particular piece of evidence, and Armand chooses to go out into the sunlight, and die:

“I will bear witness. I will stand here with my arms outstretched,” [Armand] cried, “and when
the sun rises, my death shall confirm the miracle.”

Apparently that caused such an uproar that fans were showing up to MTD booksignings wearing homemade “Armand Lives” t-shirts, and AR acquiesced and brought him back! Here’s one I designed wayyy after the fact, like two months ago:

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Gallery

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So I got these messages in my inbox and cropped out the person’s name to protect the innocent.

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Let’s hope this is an April Fool’s day joke, bc if so, wow, everyone involved got us. But… 

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^Bieberstat. Nightmare material :[ 

I feel like as an April Fool’s joke this goes kinda too far for the reasons the first message points out. It’s really bad taste (especially the queer erasure) too put it very gently, IMO 😦

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Here’s the link, read at your own risk:

http://www.dreadcentral.com/vampire-chronicles-series-lands-cw-justin-bieber-eyed-lestat.html 

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atomicheavybike:

zetsubonna:

prismatic-bell:

zetsubonna:

I think what probably gets me deeply into my feelings about this “JKR should have just made her students Of Color to start with, she can’t ret-con and pretend she did it right the first time” is that I grew up with Anne Rice and Anne McCaffery, two female fantasy writers who hated headcanons and fandom and sued people for deviating from their original vision or doing any kinds of derivative works without their express contractual permission.

I feel like people who get irritated with her about defending black!Hermione don’t appreciate how much healthier JKR’s attitude toward the inclusivity movement in her fandom is than theirs was. Or Moffat’s is. Or Gatiss’s. Or Whedon’s. Or Green’s. Or even, until very recently, Lucas’s.

She’s not a PCR, but goddamn, at least she’s passing us the milk rather than pissing in our cornflakes.

Jo is actually almost entirely responsible for fanfiction being what it is today.

BUT WAIT, I hear older fandomers cry. X-Files, Star Trek, Xena, how dare you. And yes, I say to those fandomers, you held those banners first! Be proud of the paths you forged. But Jo–

Jo did something no author or creator had ever done before.

She was a household name who encouraged fanfiction.

When I first began writing fanfiction in 1998, it was common practice to preface your fic with this massive disclaimer about how you weren’t selling it, and it was for fun, sometimes quoting the Fair Use part of the Creative Commons act, and even begging authors not to sue. Because in those days, that was a very real danger. Eleven-year-old me had reams of fanfiction on floppy disks I didn’t dare send to archives because I might get arrested and taken to Plagiarism Jail.

And then there was Jo. And no, Jo said, this is not a private amusement park at which you may stare longingly from the other side of wrought-iron gates. It is a giant sandbox. Here are my pails, here are my toys. Come sit and play with me. Eventually you may decide you like some other sandbox better, and all I ask is that you leave my toys here for others to play with, and not try to take them with you. But why should I lock you out of my sandbox? It is, after all, far more fun to play in a sandbox with many people than by yourself.

People were boggled. They didn’t get it. They thought she was crazy. And the fans? They kept loving, and writing, and drawing, and creating, and Jo kept loving them back. Potter Puppet Pals, A Very Potter Musical, Potter!, Remus and the Lupins, all stuff Jo just kind of went “whatever, they’re having fun.”

And attitudes began to change. And then someone else threw her lot in with Jo, someone who doesn’t get a lot of credit for contributing something massive to fandom culture and should:

Stephenie Meyer.

Yeah, you read that right. The goddamn author of Twilight, who refused to sue teenage girls who just wanted Bella to end up with Jacob. (And who is way more gracious than I would be about Fifty Shades.) She actually has a fanfiction archive right on her website! I’m serious: Smeyer has links to a personally-curated list of Twilight fanfiction she personally enjoyed or found interesting. Whatever you may think of her writing, that loving attitude of “we’re all here to have fun, I love that you love my world and my characters, please enjoy” was such a departure from the days of C&D letters and page-long disclaimers.

These two women changed the face of how fandom works forever. Yes, their work is flawed. They are products of their time and upbringing. But just the fact that they embrace the concepts of “my world as I see it and my world as you see it are not the same, and that’s not just okay, that’s good” is something to be celebrated.

I have a lot of issues with Meyer, but her treatment of fans is not one of them.

This is fascinating and all credit to Meyer and Rowling for being so instrumental in changing the culture. I do just want to add that the producers of Xena actually hired a fanfic writer to scriptwrite on their final season. As it often did (with a female TV action hero, with a musical episode), Xena helped to point the way.