Anne Rice fans have even more to look forward to on TV in the near future. AMC’s adaptation of Interview with the Vampire is already on track to premiere on AMC in 2022, nearly 30 years after the film version starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst came out. Now it’s been announced that another one of the author’s popular horror works, the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy, is getting the small screen treatment on the same cable network.
AMC Networks has given the green light to Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, with the first season being comprised of eight episodes and expected to air on the channel (and on the AMC+ streaming service) in late 2022. Masters of Sex’s Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford have been tapped to write and executive produce the series, with the former handling showrunner duties. While we’ve known since 2020 that AMC acquired the rights to Lives of the Mayfair Witches alongside Interview with the Vampire, now the network is officially moving forward with a series. Here’s what Spalding and Ashford has to say about being brought aboard for Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches:
The world of witches has fascinated and terrified for centuries, and yet Anne Rice’s particular lens on witches explored something new altogether – women who are powerful, and often brutal, and always committed to subverting our current power structures. We are so excited to join our partners AMC and Gran Via Productions in making this mysterious and provocative world come to life.
For those unfamiliar with Lives of the Mayfair Witches, the trilogy follows a California neurosurgeon named Rowan Mayfair who discovers that she’s the heir to a family of witches. It doesn’t take long for Rowan to discover she has extraordinary powers, and from there she learns the existence of Lasher, a ghost who’s been haunting the Mayfair family for generations. Along with the original three books (1990’s The Witching Hour, 1993’s Lasher and 1994’s Taltos), some of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches characters popped up in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles series, so could that kind of crossover happen on TV too?
It definitely seems possible given that in its announcement about Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, AMC referred to the show as part of an “expanding Anne Rice universe.” The network has the rights to 18 Rice titles in total, and with The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul both ending next year, clearly Mayfair Witches and Interview with the Vampire are being set up to be an integral corner of AMC programming. Whether that means other Rice-penned book series will be turned into AMC TV shows remains to be seen, but for now, fans of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy can take comfort knowing that this saga has finally scored a live-action adaptation.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more notable updates on the development of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, including who’s tapped to lead the AMC series. Don’t forget to look through our fall 2021 TV premiere guide to learn which of your favorite shows are currently airing.
