AMC doubles down on its Anne Rice obsession by green-lighting Mayfair Witches show
Like millions of readers in the '90s and 2000s, AMC has developed a pretty serious Anne Rice obsession
Any true connoisseurs of the works of author Anne Rice know that categorizing them as a bunch of books about horny vampires would be woefully reductive: Rice also wrote a great many books about horny witches and horny demons, as well.
Hence, then, news today that AMC has doubled down on its investment in the author’s universe of hornt supernaturals, announcing that it’ll be adding The Mayfair Witches to its already-in-production Interview With A Vampire-based series.
Per a press release put out by the networks today, AMC has green-lit The Mayfair Witches, “the second series in an expanding Anne Rice universe,” which will debut its eight-episode first season some time in 2022.
AMC announced that it was developing the Mayfair Witches show—adapted from Rice’s trilogy of novels that began with The Witching Hour in 1990—back in August, adding it to the existing Interview series that’s been in the works at various network for a couple of years. (Game Of Thrones’ Jacob Anderson will star in that show as super-boring vampire Louis, while Sam Reid will get to have more fun as Rice’s beloved bad boy bloodsucker Lestat.)
AMC picked up the rights to Rice’s massive bibliography last year, acquiring 18 very hefty tomes of romance, murder, and existential ennui. The Mayfair Witches trilogy concerns itself with the titular spellcasters, with neurosurgeon Rowan Mayfair discovering that her mother’s death has caused her to inherit the family title, extensive magical powers, and the attentions of a predatory (and horny) spirit named Lasher.
Esta Spalding will serve as showrunner on the series, which is encouraging in so far as she served the same role on Showtime’s fascinating On Becoming A God In Central Florida. Michelle Ashford (who worked with Spalding on Masters Of Sex) will also serve as an executive producer and writer on the show. Spalding and Ashford issued a statement about Mayfair today:
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.