An adaptation of a vampire-novel trilogy written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, produced by Lost’s Carlton Cuse and with a new vampire mythology far away from the rainy Northwest? Welcome to The Strain – which come this time next year, could be THE genre show to watch.
Currently finalizing a pilot deal with the FX network, del Toro and co-writer Hogan are set to write the pilot together for the new series with Cuse serving as the showrunner.
A trilogy of books whose first instalment was published in 2009, The Strain follows a group who join forces once a vampire virus arrives in New York after a plane lands at JFK under creepy circumstances. What marks the series apart from recent vampire adaptations is the introduction of new twists on familiar vampiric tropes which have the potential to be utterly horrifying.
Luckily, with the major success of The Walking Dead, which revived the zombie genre by combining gore, story and character via a mode which is detrimental to none of those aspects –The Strain could reboot the TV vampire niche.
This announcement lands just two days after del Toro optioned Corrine May Botz’s Nutshell Studies to HBO. With the director’s current commitment to Pacific Rim, he’s scheduled to unite with Hogan to pen the pilot at the end of this year.
We’ll keep you posted as more details of Guillermo del Toro’s ambitious new project are revealed.
Source: Indiewire