‘The Lost Boys’: Rob Thomas Gives Update On the CW Pilot Retooling
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The CW’s The Lost Boys pilot did not make the cut to series in May but the network kept the project alive, ordering a retooled pilot.
“The writer, Heather Mitchell, is doing a rewrite on the script right now, we have gotten through the notes process,” the project’s executive producer Rob Thomas told Deadline at TCA on Friday. “We are going to shoot the pilot this fall.”
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The retooling is not extensive.
“There were scenes that we thought we could do a better job on, so it’s going through a 40% rewrite. It’s not a total rewrite.”
Two options of two cast members from the original pilot, Medalion Rahimi and Dakota Shapiro, have been extended. They will be joined by new co-stars in the new pilot, with casting yet to begin, Thomas said.
For him, The Lost Boys has been a labor of love.
“It’s been four years that I have been playing around with Lost Boys, trying to get it made,” Thomas said.
He first took a stab at conceiving and writing a series adaptation of the iconic 1987 Warner Bros horror comedy movie during the 2016-17 development season
While the project didn’t go to pilot, the CW execs remained high on the title.
“Two years ago, I wrote a very outside-the-box version of it,” Thomas said of his Lost Boys script. “The network didn’t want to go that far outside the box. So fortunately, the writer who is working on it right now, Heather Mitchell, loves the original movie and is eager to make the series look a little bit more like the original Lost Boys. It’s two human brothers showing up in this California beach town with the amusement park and a vampire infestation. It’s going to have a lot in common with the movie.”
In The Lost Boys reboot, after the sudden death of their father, brothers Michael and Sam Emerson move to Santa Carla with their mother, Lucy, who hopes to start anew in the town where she grew up. But the brothers soon find themselves being drawn deeper and deeper into the seductive world of Santa Carla’s eternally beautiful and youthful undead.
Shapiro plays David, portrayed by Kiefer Sutherand in the 1987 film, while Rahimi plays Stella, a version of the Star character played by Jami Gertz.
How does it feel to watch another writer tackle The Lost Boys as a series?
“It’s exciting,” said Thomas, whose company Spondoolie produces the project with Warner Bros. TV. “I had a way I wanted to do it that was exciting to me. Once the network didn’t want to do it, I was eager to give them the version they would like to put on the air, usually that’s just smart television producing. I think it would’ve been very hard for me but I love that she is doing it, I love that she is a big enough fan of the movie that she wants to keep it a lot more recognizable.”
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