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After Vampire Academy’s movie failed in 2014, fans have been impatiently waiting for another adaptation, and that day is coming soon.
Julie Plec, the creator of The Vampire Diaries and its spinoffs, will be producing. Plec has been hoping to get her hands on the series for years now, starting with a tweet from 2015.
Marguerite MacIntyre also joined the project as showrunner. MacIntyre played Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes in The Vampire Diaries and wrote for all three Vampire Diaries series.
On May 19, 2021, the official Twitter of the Vampire Academy television series announced the writers for the series. Y. Shireen Razack, Moreke Balogun, Adam Starks, Jason Coffey, JJ Braider, Noah Diaz, Linda Ge, and Ben O’Hara have signed on to the project.
While there is no release date as of yet, Peacock announced their cast on Monday, August 30.
Sisi Stringer (Mortal Kombat) will star as Rose Hathaway opposite Daniela Nieves’s (Save Me) Lissa Dragomir. Dimitri will be portrayed by Kieron Moore (Sex Education) and Andre Dae Kim (Degrassi) will portray Christian Ozera.
Rounding out the cast is J. August Richards (Angel) as Victor Dashkov, Anita-Joy Uwajeh (Lucky Man) as Tatiana Vogel, Mia McKenna-Bruce (The Dumping Ground) as Mia Karp, Rhian Blundell (Nobody Girl) as Meredith, Jnoetta Kaiser (Two Sides) as Sonja Karp, and Andrew Liner (Grown-ish) as Mason Ashford.
Vampire Academy is a six-book series by Richelle Mead that follows Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir and her best friend and guardian, Rose Hathaway. In the series, there are three vampire-based species: the Moroi, Dhampirs, and Strigoi.
Moroi are the born vampires that age like humans and have elemental magic. Dhampirs are half-Moroi, half-human that have no magic and are stronger than humans.
Strigoi are the “bad guys” of the series as they are created vampires that don’t age, burn in the sunlight, and have excessive bloodlust.
The series also spawned a spinoff series consisting of six books, Bloodlines. Fans are still hoping to see this series come to the silver screen.
The 2014 adaptation failed at the box office, and the already-planned sequel was subsequently canceled. Since then, fans have had many opinions on where the film went wrong and where it went right.
One of the most cringy parts of the film was how big the vampires opened their mouths to bite people. They opened their mouths so big to add intrigue and drama, but it just felt over-the-top and unnecessary.
Fans also pointed out that the writing felt off-brand for the characters they so loved in the books. Mia and Christian had some of the worst lines. The writers tried so hard to make it evident that Mia was the school’s mean girl, and it was too exaggerated. Her line about Lissa’s non-existent baby having herpes was just so weird and out of place.
Meanwhile, Christian was the brooding bad boy with a heart of gold in the books. But you wouldn’t know that by watching the film. The actor did a great job with what he was given. Sadly, what he was given was seriously lacking.
Many fans loved Zoey Deutch as Rose, but many also agreed that she didn’t look like the Rose from the series. In the books, Rose is half-Turkish, half-Scottish, and described as short and curvy with tanned skin.
The movie also cut out most of the heavier scenes from the first book despite the fact that they played significant parts in the series, as well as several fan-favorite scenes, and added a speech at the end that rubbed fans the wrong way.
One of the heavier plot points the movie skipped involved how Lissa’s powers affected her mental health and the urgency behind Rose protecting her from everyone. It was glossed over in the films, and fans were disappointed in this choice. Now that mental health is a much bigger conversation in pop culture, I hope that will change.
What are you looking forward to seeing in the reboot? And do you think it’ll live up to the hype?
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