The Return of Lestat

Man- this is a great time to be an Anne Rice fan! Not only is she back with a new fabulous sounding book – The Wolf Gift – but now the word is out that there will be a new film from the Vampire Chronicles Series in the works. Although the lady herself is not going to be much involved, and seems quite happy to have it be that way, there are going to be some top notch folks putting this one together.

First of all, it will be based on the fourth book of the series, The Tale of the Body Thief. If you don’t recall it, in this one Lestate is moping around the world after being a rock star and more, and he is quite frankly bored. He has done it all, and longs to feel what it would be like to be human again. In his travels he comes upon a very odd individual, a man who claims to be a psychic that can swap bodies. Lestat finds a way to convince him to swap bodies with him so he can feel what it is like to be human again – for one day. The only problem is, once the swap is done the stranger takes off with Lestat’s all too vampiric body and Lestat finds he must pursue him across the globe to get his body back. The story is markedly different from the others in the series, much less a dark tale and more of an adventure.

This may in fact be what is bringing the interest in the movie adaptation. Adventure may well be what Ron Howard and Ron Grazer had in mind when their production company Imagine Entertainment went to India’s Reliance Big Entertainment for funding to option the story. With Imagine’s reputation for big stories like The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and the fact that they brought in as writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek and Transformers) to handle the script, we may yet see a great adventure with our favorite vampire again.

In the meantime, I just may have to crack open my old copy of The Tale of the Body Thief and re–read it one more time. I have a habit of pulling out Anne Rice’s books to read again. Heck it may be worth it to read the whole Vampire Chronicles in order again, just to get the feel for where this one fits into the big picture. And it will be fun to visit it again, in anticipation of seeing it on the big screen some time soon.