The Vampire Lestat (aka Interview with the Vampire) renewed for season 4, renamed Queen of the Damned

The Vampire Lestat – formerly titled Interview with the Vampire – will return for a fourth season.

The news was announced at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con during a panel for the show’s third season, which wrapped up in the US last week and is set to arrive in the UK on 28 July.

In keeping with the Anne Rice novels on which the series is based, the fourth instalment has been retitled Queen of the Damned – just as season 3 rebranded from Interview with the Vampire into The Vampire Lestat – adapting the third novel in the series. It will largely revolve around Akasha, the original vampire, who is played by Sheila Atim.

The series is also undergoing a change behind the scenes, with executive producer Hannah Moscovitch taking over as showrunner from Rolin Jones, who helmed the first three seasons. Jones will remain on board as an executive producer.

“In The Vampire Lestat, Mark, Rolin, Hannah and this extraordinary cast delivered an unforgettable season filled with propulsive storytelling that captivated the passionate and engaged fans of this franchise,” AMC Global Media’s chief content officer and president of AMC Studios Dan McDermott said in a release (via The Hollywood Reporter).

“We can’t wait to continue the journey with Queen of the Damned, one of the most iconic stories in Anne Rice’s mythology, and watch our established and beloved characters confront Akasha with their world, and ours, very much hanging in the balance.”

In the teaser unveiled at SDCC, Atim’s Akasha speaks over footage of women protesting, intermittently appearing on screen as she declares: “You who have called to me, not knowing my name. You, with your dresses stained, your faces down in the mud. I have heard you,” she says.

“And I say this to you now: Do not let them shape you into the size of their cage. Women, get up out of the ditches where they have thrown you, and come with me now to where the men are gathered, and do what you have long longed to do,” Akasha demands. “Kill them all.”

In the teaser’s final moments, Akasha’s battle cry rings out: “I am the answer!”

McDermott previously said that the network is “looking at all the books in the canon” to keep the story of Louis, Lestat, Molloy and Armand going “for another two seasons at least” (via The Ankler).

He went on to reference the now-confirmed Queen of the Damned and Rice’s fourth Vampire Chronicles novel, The Tale of the Body Thief, as the “natural next books in the cycle” being discussed for future seasons.

Speaking previously to Radio Times about where their characters end up at the end of season 3, Jacob Anderson (Louis de Pointe du Lac) said: “They’re going to end up in a very different place to where they started. I can definitely, like, I can guarantee that.”

“Also, this season, I think, Louis and Lestat end up in a new sort of zone with each other… some new things happen in their relationship [which] open up more possibilities.”

Meanwhile, Sam Reid (Lestat de Lioncourt) acknowledged that Louis and Lestat “always find a way back to each other”.

“You’re gonna go through a process of rooting for them, not rooting for them, rooting for them again – and they do the same. Nothing comes easy… you’d be bored [if it did],” he said of season 3.

“I feel like audiences sometimes have to yearn for something. You’ve got to feel that equal, vampiric yearning. You need to know what you’re missing.”

The Vampire Lestat (aka Interview with the Vampire) is available on AMC+ (US) and BBC iPlayer (UK).

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