The Interview With the Vampire movie is now 30 years old. The first onscreen adaptation of Anne Rice‘s hit 1976 novel struggled to be made for years, and it was director Neil Jordan‘s script (based on Rice’s original screenplay) that finally got the ball rolling even though he didn’t receive a writing credit for his work. In a new interview commemorating the film’s 30th anniversary (November 11), Jordan revealed that he would “happily” produce a director’s cut of the movie that would add around 20 minutes of deleted scenes back in. His only concern is that there aren’t enough fans of the film to warrant an extended edition release.
As some fans may already know, there was a scene in the film’s script, which did not make the final cut, in which Brad Pitt‘s Louis de Pointe du Lac confesses to a priest before killing him. He’s already a vampire in this version. There’s a similar scene in the climax of the first episode of AMC‘s Interview With the Vampire, but there are key differences. Jacob Anderson‘s still-human Louis is distraught in confession before Sam Reid‘s Lestat de Lioncourt storms in and kills both of the priests in the church. The scene/episode ends with Lestat turning Louis into a vampire.
Jordan told Variety that he would be interested in releasing a director’s cut that would include this confession scene, saying he was “sad” that moment couldn’t make it into the film but explains why it had to be axed.
“We had a version that was longer, where Brad actually goes to confession, and the priest is so horrified by what he’s telling him he retreats towards the altar, and Brad drains his blood underneath this enormous Dali-esque crucifix,” Jordan explained. “I was sad not to see that there. There could be a director’s cut of the movie. I would happily do it. But the problem in turning the novel into a movie was that it was a picaresque narrative — ‘and then, and then, and then, and then.’ It’s not like this set up tension between characters that’s resolved in the third act. So when I had cut the movie, I was saying, ‘I really think it’s too long.’ And we showed it to a paid preview audience, and they said, ‘It’s too long.’ So I came back in a week, and now it’s shorter.”
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Jordan says that fan demand could make an extended edition happen.
“I don’t know if there are enough fans of the movie to warrant [the release of a longer version], but I would like to do it, if possible,” he revealed.
Jordan also explained again why there was never a sequel despite the film’s success. Jordan wrote a script for a sequel adapting The Vampire Lestat, book two of Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, but Tom Cruise did not want to reprise the role. It wasn’t because of dislike of the character, however.
“I was asked to write a script of The Vampire Lestat, which I did. And quite simply, Tom didn’t want to reprise the role. It was as simple as that. And it would’ve been quite a different animal,” Jordan shared. “If Mr. Cruise had said he would do it, I’m sure they would’ve done it. But at the time he wasn’t doing sequels.”
Thirty years later, The Vampire Lestat still hasn’t gotten an in-depth adaptation. The 2002 film Queen of the Damned included elements of the sequel novel that tells Lestat’s origin story and his side of the events of Interview With the Vampire, but Louis isn’t even a character in the movie, so it’s far from loyal to the original story. Fans will finally get an in-depth adaptation of the book in the third season of AMC’s Interview With the Vampire, which is currently being written and expected to start filming soon, though no start-of-production date has been announced.
Jordan’s Interview With the Vampire also stars Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, Antonio Banderas as Armand, and Christian Slater as Daniel Molloy. It was briefly available to stream on Max earlier this fall, but it has since been removed. It’s now only available to rent or purchase on digital platforms. It’s also available to buy on Blu-ray and DVD.
Interview With the Vampire, Season 3 TBA, AMC
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