You might think that successfully navigating the choppy waters of re-making one of the most acclaimed vampire films in recent years would be enough to make anyone swear off tackling the fang fiends for life. But nope, Let Me In director Matt Reeves has decided that he wants to find more of them, lining up to make an adaptation of Justin Cronin’s novel The Passage.
The plot sounds a little like I Am Legend, focusing on a group of terminally ill cancer patients who suddenly recover after being bitten by South American bats. Cue the government seeing the possibilities of this as a cure, and the disastrous results, with a powerful group of telepathic vampires roaming the country and infecting the rest of humanity. And no one sparkles.
Cronin’s book, which is the first of a mooted series, arrived last year, but Fox 2000 actually picked the rights up in 2007, back when he first pitched the idea to publishers on the back of a 400 page sample and the outline for more of a story. John Logan has been writing the script drafts up until now, but he’s dug in cranking out work on Bond 23, so Reeves will supervise another writer brought in to polish the vampire tale.
Reeves is certainly loading up on the possible projects: it was only last week that he became attached to a film version of Ray Nelson’s 8 O’Clock In The Morning, with Universal spearheading the new take on the story that inspired John Carpenter’s They Live. The race to see which project makes it to the starting line (along with Reeves' other planned ideas), starts now…