The CW nearly put a stake in the heart of Rob Thomas’ The Lost Boys television adaptation earlier this year, asking the Veronica Mars showrunner to go back to the drawing board and redo the pilot. Now, with a mostly new cast and Scandal’s Heather Mitchell serving as showrunner, Thomas says they’re eyeing a 2020 premiere. Hopefully.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Thomas revealed that he and Mitchell are “making progress” on remaking the pilot for The Lost Boys. The project has been in the works since 2016 and only made headway in January 2019 when Mitchell brought the network a script that they agreed to turn into a pilot, directed by Twilight’s Catherine Hardwicke.
The CW ultimately chose to pass on the pilot, but not the series. Instead, the team were tasked with a reshoot, which isn’t a common practice for the network according to Thomas:
We’re so close! I mean, CW never remakes a pilot, and they’re remaking this one because they believe in it. And we just have to get a couple more things right this time on it. Hopefully it will be on the air next year.
According to a previous Deadline report, The CW was still interested in the script, but felt the pilot didn’t come together. So some changes were ordered — including recasting all but two roles, Stella and David, played by Medalion Rahimi and Dakota Shapiro, respectively.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2019/01/break-out-the-saxophones-cw-has-picked-up-a-pilot-for-the-lost-boystv-show/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/cmpcmxemf4cetfbhjkoh.gif” title=”Break Out The Saxophones, CW Has Picked Up A Pilot For The Lost Boys TV Show” excerpt=”Do you still believe? The CW does.”]
Inspired by the 1987 vampire horror-comedy by Joel Schumacher, this new version of The Lost Boys was first pitched as an anthology series spanning 70 years over the course of seven seasons. The vampire protagonists would stay the same, but each season would take place in a different decade — with a unique location and new characters.
It’s unclear whether this new version will follow the same plans as the original, or if bigger changes are being made to the overall structure to go with the major recasting. Either way, Thomas said it’s worth it to finally see the series come to life… in a manner of speaking:
This has been a odyssey for me with Lost Boys. 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.
The new Lost Boys pilot looks to start filming later this year.