About a year and a half ago, we heard that AMC was developing a third TV series based on the works of Anne Rice, adding to the franchise they’ve been building out of the Vampire Chronicles novels and the Mayfair Witch books written by Rice. A few months ago, the show – which is going by the working title of Anne Rice’s The Talamasca – was officially ordered to series, with the plan being for episodes to start airing sometime in 2025. Now we have information about the lead of the show, as Variety revealed that Nicholas Denton of Glitch and Dangerous Liasions has been cast as a character named Guy Anatole.

This entry in the franchise that AMC is calling the Anne Rice Immortal Universe will follow a secretive society called the Talamasca that’s responsible for tracking and containing witches, vampires, werewolves and other creatures. Members of the Talamasca have already been introduced in the AMC shows Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.

John Lee Hancock, whose credits include The Blind Side and the Stephen King adaptation Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, is writing the Talamasca series and will be serving as showrunner alongside Mark Lafferty of The Right Stuff and Halt and Catch Fire. Hancock will also be directing the first episode. All of AMC’s Anne Rice projects are produced by AMC Studios and executive produced by Mark Johnson.

Denton’s character Guy Anatole is “brilliant, handsome and sharp on the surface, but he’s always known his mind works a little differently. On the cusp of graduating law school, he is approached by a representative of the Talamasca, a secretive agency that monitors and protects us from the supernatural world. When Guy learns that the Talamasca has been tracking him since his childhood, he falls headlong into a world of secret agents and immortal beings who, up to now, have maintained a fragile balance with the mortal world. But for that balance to hold, and for Guy to survive, he will have to learn to embrace the dark, treacherous depths of his true and singular self.” He does not appear to be a character from Rice’s novels.

Talamasca is scheduled to start filming in Manchester, England next month. Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks, provided the following statement when the series was announced: “This is a story we’ve been developing and wanting to tell from the earliest moments of this franchise, focused on a fascinating and compelling secret society that has already appeared in both of our existing Anne Rice series, the Talamasca. As with all of these shows, we are thrilled to have such a high level of talent involved, represented here by John Lee Hancock and Mark Lafferty, and of course working closely with producer Mark Johnson as the creative head of our Anne Rice Immortal Universe.“

Hancock added: “This all started for me with a call from Mark Johnson, who asked if I’d ever heard of the Talamasca. I was intrigued by the idea of an organization that, to me, had more than a passing resemblance to the CIA or MI6, which are necessary but not always necessarily transparent. An organization with its own secrets. Thankfully, Dan McDermott liked the take and so did Mark Lafferty, who is so talented and accomplished in the world of television. Many thanks to everyone from Gran Via to Mark Lafferty, to our talented writers and everyone at AMC, who have been supporters, advocates and cheerleaders from day one. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be involved and look forward to presenting a third series in the Anne Rice Immortal Universe.“

Are you a fan of Interview with the Vampire (you can read our review of the first season HERE and the second HERE) and/or Mayfair Witches (our review of that show’s first season is HERE), and are you interested in seeing what John Lee Hancock and AMC do with Anne Rice’s The Talamasca? What do you think of Nicholas Denton being cast in the lead role of Guy Anatole? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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