Rob Thomas' The Lost Boys adaptation gets pilot order at The CW along with Maverick
The Lost Boys pilot is dead no more!
After more than four years of unsuccessful attempts to bring Joel Schumacher’s campy 1987 vampire movie to the small screen, Rob Thomas’ adaptation has officially been given a pilot order by The CW. The news was announced on Friday, along with the pilot pickup of Maverick.
From Warner Bros. TV and executive produced and written by Thomas (Veronica Mars, iZombie) along with Heather Mitchell, The Lost Boys television reboot is about a mother and her gen z sons who move to the seaside town where she grew up, only to discover there’s a sinister reason the local cool kids sleep all day, party all night, never grow up and never get old. Family bonds are tested as the brothers find themselves on opposite sides of a mythological struggle based on the cult classic film that revolutionized how we think about vampires.
The Lost Boys, also executive produced and directed by Marcos Siega and executive produced by Dan Etheridge, Mike Karz, and Bill Bindley, first made headlines back in 2016 when The CW began developing the pilot with Thomas. It was always meant to be a reimagining the original film — a horror-comedy starring then-teen-idols Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, and the “Two Coreys,” Haim and Feldman — exploring what it means to be immortal, with a story spanning 70 years. The first iteration was set to be an anthology series running over seven seasons, with each season covering a different decade with a new setting, new human characters, and a new antagonist, while the titular vampires would remain the same. The network finally ordered the Lost Boys pilot in January 2019, to be directed by Twilight’s Catherine Hardwicke, but eventually passed on ordering it to series in May. Fans were then given a renewed sense of hope when The CW then ordered reshoots of the pilot, along with recasting most of the roles.
“This has been a odyssey for me with Lost Boys,” Thomas previously told EW. “I have been trying to get Lost Boys — I was about to say trying to get Lost Boys to see the light of day, and that sounded so embarrassingly punny to me that I will rephrase that sentence. I’ve been trying to get Lost Boys off the ground for the better part of four years now, first as a movie, then as a pilot that I wrote, and now as a pilot that Heather’s written. We just shot a pilot that did not quite work; we plan on shooting another one. Hopefully this fourth attempt of ours will be the charm. Lost Boys deserves to be on TV.”
And now it will — along with Maverick, from CBS TV with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage‘s Fake Empire. Executive produced by Schwartz, Savage, Lis Rowinski, and Warren Hsu Leonard, and co-executive produced and written by Merigan Mulhern, Maverick is set in a present day America that finds itself under authoritarian rule. The President’s daughter — raised to believe her father is moral and benevolent — has her worldview rocked on her first day at Georgetown. Challenged by her fellow students, and under the watchful eye of Secret Service agents, she’ll have to decide if her loyalties lie with her family or with a growing resistance as she navigates her freshman year.
Casting for both The Lost Boys and Maverick pilots have not been announced yet.
The Lost Boys and Maverick join The CW’s roster of pilots for the 2020-2021 TV season, including Kung Fu and The Republic of Sarah, while Arrowverse spinoff Superman & Lois and Walker, Texas Ranger reboot Walker scored early series orders. Decisions on the Arrow spinoff Green Arrow & the Canaries and The 100 prequel titled Anaconda have yet to be announced.
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