"True Blood" reboot planned from "Sabrina" showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

It's unclear if any of the original cast will return for the show's potential resurrection on HBO

Published December 9, 2020 9:03PM (EST)

Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard and Lucy Griffith in "True Blood"
Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard and Lucy Griffith in "True Blood"

This article originally appeared on IndieWire.

With the final season of Netflix's "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" set to arrive, series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is hard at work on his next project, which has a similar supernatural bent.

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Variety reported that Aguirre-Sacasa is in early development on a reboot of HBO's vampire drama "True Blood." Aguirre-Sacasa and "NOS4A2" creator Jami O'Brien will work together on the script, as well as serve as executive producers, while Alan Ball, the original creator of "True Blood," will also executive produce. There's nothing else currently known about the reboot and it's unclear if any of the original cast will return.

The series, which ran on HBO from 2008 to 2014, follows Louisiana waitress and telepath Sookie Stackhouse, originally played by Anna Paquin, as she navigates a relationship with vampire Bill Compton (played by Stephen Moyer), as well as a host of other fantasy and supernatural characters. The series itself was an adaptation of Charlaine Harris' series of novels, "The Southern Vampire Mysteries."

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Outside of Paquin and Moyer the series also included Alexander Skarsgard, Rutina Wesley, and Joe Manganiello. Ball  left the series in Season 5, leaving many fans to feel the latter seasons were subpar.

It'll be interesting to see where Aguirre-Sacasa and O'Brien take the new series, which became a guilty pleasure for many HBO viewers with its mix of melodrama and sex. Before rebooting "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" for Netflix, Aguirre-Sacasa was also the mastermind before The CW's successful "Riverdale" series, a similar property to "True Blood" with its high-concept plots and beautiful people in peril.

This would be the showrunner's second HBO property in development. In 2019 it was announced he was working on a supernatural detective series called "The Shelley Society," surrounding a young Mary Shelley, for HBO Max, though it's unknown what stage of development that's in. In that same report it was also announced Aguirre-Sacasa was working on a reimagining of Dracula, albeit focused more on Dracula's brides.

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For its fans, "True Blood" is a sacred property so Aguirre-Sacasa and O'Brien have their work cut out for them. Though, considering how everything old is new again, this is the right time to return to the series — with its focus on a world where vampires exist the series was able to examine elements of bigotry and tolerance, themes that are certainly still present today.


By Kristen Lopez

Kristen Lopez is the former Film Editor for TheWrap and has been a pop culture essayist, critic, and editor whose articles have appeared at Variety, MTV, TCM, and Roger Ebert. She was previously the TV Editor for IndieWire where she was nominated for a SoCal Journalism Award and National Journalism Award by the LA Press Club.

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