Remember natural disaster films and TV movies in the late 1990s? It wasn't a coincidence that Volcano: Fire on the Mountain -- the TV mini-series -- came out the same year as Volcano and Dante's Peak. Now Hollywood has moved on to darker, more bloodthirsty pastures... At least all the pretty boys are getting work.
Following the success of HBO's True Blood and the teen film sensation Twilight, we're not surprised that the absurdly beautiful Ian Somerhalder was cast as a vampire for ABC's The Vampire Diaries. Look at him, he's a natch! But how much is too much of a good-to-occasionally-mediocre thing? An article in The New York Observer points out that there are even more vampire projects in the pipeline.
Add this to the list that includes the just purchased script by Marc Haimes for Elevator Men, which The Hollywood Reporter's Jay A. Fernandez described as "a less romanticized look at the human-vampire interactions"; last week's U.K. release of the delicately named Lesbian Vampire Killers; and the soon-to-be released adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers.
But wait, there's more. A lot more. How about Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's planned adaptation of Dark Shadows, which ran on TV from 1966 to 1971; the second season of HBO's True Blood (itself based on a series of novels by Charlaine Harris); and of course, New Moon, the highly anticipated (by your 15-year-old cousin) sequel to Twilight, which grossed $191,397,304 at the box office last year. (observer.com)
So is The Vampire Diaries too late? Or is it just filling a demographic void, sort of like how Volcano: Fire on the Mountain was made for people too cheap to pay for Dante's Peak? When will this vampire bubble burst? And how much shit are we going to get for using the term "vampire bubble"? [Ed.: Lots.]
Our initial reaction is to think that the vampire thing is played out, but do not underestimate the hormones of young teenage girls without HBO or a ride to the movie theater. We welcome Ian Somerhalder into our living rooms and hope that ABC lets a few steamy love scenes slide.
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