Michelle Ashford, Esta Spaulding, and Rachel Caris Love are working on projects through AMC Studios’ scripts-to-series model, “which opens writers’ rooms to develop prospective series that, in success, move straight-to-series,” per Deadline. “Masters of Sex” alumnae Ashford and Spaulding are writing and exec producing an adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Lives of the Mayfair Witches” trilogy, while Love (“Blindspot”) serves as creator and EP of “Invitation to a Bonfire,” based on Adrienne Celt’s novel of the same name.
“Lives of the Mayfair Witches” “will focus on an intuitive young neurosurgeon who discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches,” Deadline summarizes. “As she grapples with her newfound powers, she must contend with a sinister presence that has haunted her family for generations.”
Should the project go to series, Spaulding would serve as showrunner.
“Lives of the Mayfair Witches” isn’t the only Anne Rice project in the works at AMC Networks: the company acquired the rights to Rice’s bibliography last year. A new, episodic take on “Interview with the Vampire” is expected in 2022.
“We have an enormous amount of ambition for these iconic works, which have captivated and entertained millions of fans around the world, so it is gratifying to be moving so quickly from the ‘Interview’ greenlight to exploring a second series with such talented and accomplished writers and creators as Esta and Michelle,” said Dan McDermott, president of original programming for AMC Networks and AMC Studios. “We take our responsibility to deliver compelling television to both existing and new fans of this material incredibly seriously, as we move deliberately to develop these titles into a new franchise and universe for AMC+ and AMC.”
Inspired by Vera and Vladimir Nabokov’s marriage, “Invitation to a Bonfire” “is a taut psychological thriller set at an all-girls boarding school in New Jersey during the 1930s.” The source details, “the series follows Zoya, a naïve Russian groundskeeper, who becomes obsessed with the school’s newest faculty member, an enigmatic novelist, and is drawn into a lethal love triangle with him and his bewitching wife.”
“Based on an exquisitely crafted novel, we’re excited to put this gripping story of love, loss, and identity into a writers’ room,” McDermott emphasized. “With a brilliant visionary like Rachel driving this effort, we look forward to exploring these complicated, captivating characters and seeing how a potential series takes shape.”
