The undead The Lost Boys pilot is still alive.
After four long years of unsuccessful attempts to bring Joel Schumacher’s campy 1987 vampire movie to the small screen, fans were given a renewed sense of hope in May when the CW ordered reshoots of the pilot, along with recasting most of the roles. And The Lost Boys producer Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, iZombie) hasn’t given up hope yet either.
“We’re so close!” he tells EW. “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.”
The TV adaptation of The Lost Boys first made headlines back in 2016, when the CW began developing the pilot with Thomas attached as writer and executive producer. The TV show was supposed 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. It was set to be an anthology series intended to unfold 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 of this year, to be directed by Twilight’s Catherine Hardwicke, but eventually passed on ordering it to series in May. But it’s not dead yet. A new version of the pilot is in development, with some key changes. Not only are most of the roles being recast, but there’s been a change of leadership at the top.
“I am not attached as the showrunner; I am one of the producers on it,” Thomas reveals. “A writer named Heather Mitchell, who comes out of the Shondaland world, is writing it for us and would be the showrunner. We are making a new pilot. I go directly from this phone call into a conference call about the latest outline of Lost Boys, so we are making progress.”
Just as diehard fans are eagerly awaiting to see The Lost Boys on TV, Thomas is equally passionate about finally seeing this project make it across the finish line.
“This has been a odyssey for me with Lost Boys,” he says. “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.”
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