True Blood arrived with near-perfect timing in 2008, as with Twilight still ascendant, the time was right for this imaginative, romantic and melodramatic tale. The show’s conceit is that vampires are suddenly able to ‘come out of the closet’ after the invention of a synthetic blood substitute. Over seven seasons, we saw the newly outed vamps battling for equal rights in a thinly veiled LGBTQ allegory, with werewolves, faeries and witches eventually joining the party.
It wrapped in 2014, picked up a whole bunch of awards and the franchise has been on ice ever since. But in December, we heard that HBO was planning to resurrect the show with a full reboot. Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and NOS4A2‘s Jamie O’Brien are at the helm, with original showrunner Alan Ball contributing in an advisory capacity.
Fans were split, with many not seeing the point in rebooting the show less than a decade on and worrying that it’d destroy the original’s legacy. Now, however, HBO seems to have tempered expectations for the project, with Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys saying:
“I wouldn’t say it’s as far along as, say, the Game of Thrones [spinoff House of Dragon]. We definitely have a writer working on an idea for sure, but I think that it’s fair to say it’s not quite as far along as people think. It’s not coming on the air next year. It’s a long way away from that. … We’ll have to see how it comes together. Like with any development, you want to see [if] it [is] a story worth telling. Is it engaging? Does it add to the original? And we’ll see.”
Judging from this, I’d guess that someone (probably Aguirre-Sacasa or O’Brien) has made a great pitch for bringing True Blood back and HBO is interested. But there’s a lot of time between a pitch being put forth and production beginning, so I’m betting they’re waiting for a plot outline and spec scripts before any firm decision is made on whether the show will indeed return.
That would also mean it really is a “long way away,” which might indicate it’d air in time for the tenth anniversary of the series finale in 2024. The core concept of vampires revealing themselves to humanity and the world dealing with the consequences is still intriguing, so if another True Blood builds off the same idea but takes things in weird new directions, I’d certainly give it a chance. Let’s hope we hear more about their plans soon.
