Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches EP Teases Interview With the Vampire Easter Eggs in AMC Series

08/14/2022 07:22 pm EDT

This fall will see the dawn of the Anne Rice universe on AMC and AMC+ with the debut of the eagerly anticipated Interview With the Vampire in October, closely followed by Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches in early 2023. And while the series — the Vampire Chronicles and the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy — exist in the same general universe on the pages of the late Rice's books, how the series might be connected on screen has been a bit of a mystery until now. At AMC's Television Critics Association summer press tour presentation last week, executive producer Mark Johnson explained that Interview and Mayfair will have some tangential connections in their first seasons, though the two series are very much their own entities.

"Some are fun, some are deliberate, and some are almost Easter eggs," Johnson said of shared references in the two series. "But Mayfair Witches is very much its own project and its own series. Obviously, it's connected to Anne Rice's thematic and stylistic concentration, so it's very much a part of what she does but I would say that there's very little deliberately from Interview in Mayfair Witches."

As for how Mayfair Witches will establish its own story, showrunner Esta Spalding explained that the first season of the series is inspired by the first book in The Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy, The Witching Hour, though some of the book's history of the generations of Mayfair witches may be spread out over future seasons.

"The first season starts where the book starts, in that mood of New Orleans and the sort of ghost story of this house,' Spalding said. "We meet really quickly Rowan Fielding who's the main character of the first book and through the series."

She continued, "The middle section is about 300 or 400 pages of 13 generations of witches going all the way back to Scotland. We used a piece of that, and then we feel like we're gonna save some of that great story and saga of all the different generations for later seasons, should we be so lucky."

Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches is based on the Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy and is produced by AMC Studios. The series focuses on an intuitive young neurosurgeon who discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches. As she grapples with her newfound powers, she must contend with a sinister presence that has haunted her family for generations. Mayfair Witches is written and executive produced by Masters of Sex alums Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford and will have eight episodes in its first season.

Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches is expected to debut on AMC+ in early 2023.

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