Universal Pictures has secured movie rights to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles novels.
The popular book series tracks the journey of an 18th century French-aristocrat-turned-bloodsucker, and the movie studio will be hoping to transform the novels into a money-spinning film franchise.
The deal includes rights to the existing and future novels in the series, as well as the adapted screenplay for 'The Tale of the Body Thief', which was penned by Christopher Rice, son of Anne.
Other books in the popular series include 'Interview With the Vampire', 'The Vampire Lestat', 'The Queen of the Damned' and 'Blood Canticle', as well as the soon-to-be-released 'Prince Lestat'.
Universal has already confirmed that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci - who have worked on the 'Transformers' and 'Star Trek' movies together - have been brought in to produce the 'Vampire Chronicles'.
An earlier version of Anne Rice's story - 'Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles' - featured Hollywood superstars Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst and Tom Cruise.
The movie was released in 1994 and performed impressively at the box office, earning more than $200 million worldwide.
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