It has to be said, there is just too much Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci in Hollywood right now. In the last ten years these two were in some way (if not wholly) responsible for the screenplays for The Island, The Legend of Zorro, Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek Into Darkness and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The bright spots along the way, in my opinion, were Mission: Impossible III and Star Trek, both films I would just as soon give credit to director J.J. Abrams before these two.
Now Kurtzman is handling the Spider-Man spin-off Venom as well as a Mummy remake at Universal, Orci has been given the keys to Star Trek 3 and while the two have gone their separate ways in terms of their solo careers they’re getting the band back together with Brian Grazer‘s Imagine Entertainment to produce and bring Anne Rice‘s “Vampire Chronicles” books to the big screen.
[amz asin=”0307962520″ size=”small”]It’s been 20 years since Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt starred in Interview with the Vampire and we can all forget Queen of the Damned was ever made, so starting over with Rice’s novels makes sense as Universal has snatched up rights to all 13 books in the series as well as the upcoming “Prince Lestat” as well as the screenplay for “Tales of the Body Thief” penned by Rice’s son, Christopher Rice.
There had been some movement about The Wrap doesn’t have any additional information on just how quickly this might be moving forward, though I have to wonder, given Grazer’s close working relationship with Ron Howard, could Howard possibly delve into bringing Lestat back to the big screen?
My only hope is for Kurtzman and Orci to keep their hands off the script, otherwise I would love to see what someone might do with this material as long as the attempt isn’t to turn it into some glossy blockbuster. I’ve read only two of Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles” novels — “Interview with the Vampire” and “Vampire Lestat” — and enjoyed them both and think there is a lot to explore, it quite simply, to me, isn’t blockbuster fare, but more of the end-of-the-year kind of “big” movie, but definitely not summer time fare.
