True Blood Reboot Happening At HBO
True Blood is coming back from the dead.
This article is more than 2 years old
True Blood was quite the successful show back when it premiered on HBO in 2008. The adaptation of Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries books was critically beloved for most of its run and maintained a loyal cult following over the course of its seven seasons. The show ended back in 2014, but it looks like it is about to rise from the grave as a brand new reboot.
Deadline has the report about the new version of True Blood which will see Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and NOS4A2 creator Jami O’Brien writing the pilot. Considering that this is being called a reboot, it looks like this version will not act as a follow-up to the original series. Those specifics have not been made clear as of right now, so it is possible this take could end up folding into the established world of the original HBO show.
The original True Blood revolved around the character of Sookie Stackhouse played by Anna Paquin (Rogue from the X-Men movies). Sookie is a telepathic waitress living in Louisiana who finds herself embroiled in the world of vampires. In this world, vampires are known to exist and most sustain their bloodlust by drinking a synthetic blood product that is sold by a corporation. Sookie ends up falling in love with the vampire Bill Compton and has to navigate the new world of vampires as they fight for equal rights and assimilation into popular culture.
As we said, we do not know if the new version of True Blood being developed by HBO will be a straightforward riff on the familiar source material or if it will be a brand new story with new characters in the same world. There might be some pushback from the fandom if this reboot completely ignores everything from the original show. Of course, the showrunners could give the series an appearance of being totally new and surprise fans with a big return towards the end of its first season. It will be interesting to see if fans will be on board for a totally new iteration of the property or not.
There is definitely a chance for this new version of True Blood to right some of the wrongs of the original show’s last two seasons. Those seasons received significantly lower critical scores and they also did not feature series creator Alan Ball as the showrunner. Alan Ball is actually attached to the reboot as an executive producer, so that can definitely fuel some rumors about this new riff being connected to the original show.
The True Blood reboot is in its early stages of development, but it looks like HBO has been working on this for at least a year. Whenever production on shows gets back to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be worth keeping an eye on what kind of priority HBO puts on this new version. Will it be one of their fast-tracked shows or could it sit on the shelf for a while? And could it be positioned as an exclusive for their HBO Max streaming service? We will have to wait and see how it all shakes out.
