Emma Roberts Draws ‘First’ Blood with Vampire Drama on Netflix
Being featured in Emma Roberts’ book club is paying off big. Last month Hulu announced it had inked a deal to adapt Lie to Me by author Carola Lovering from Roberts’ production company Belletrist TV. Now Netflix has picked up First Kill, an eight episode series based on a short story by V. E. Schwab and published in the anthology Vampires Never Get Old.
First Kill the show will be a teen drama pitting a vampire against her would-be slayer with a dark romantic energy to it. In the story, vampire Juliette is poised to make her first kill but chooses slayer Calliope as her victim. Rather than fight to the death, the two discover they are attracted to each other. As a relationship status, ‘it’s complicated’ would be an understatement.
Schwab, who wrote the best-selling Shades of Magic trilogy, will serve as creator, writer and executive producer of the series, with Felicia D. Henderson (The Punisher, Empire) on board as showrunner and writer. The cast has yet to be announced.
Roberts and Karah Preiss will co-executive produce, and their Belletrist TV won a bidding war over 18 other companies to get the rights to the program, according to Deadline.
Roberts (Nancy Drew, Scream Queens) and Preiss started Belletrist as a club for book enthusiasts, and developed it into a media company with a mission to produce novel-based entertainment back in 2017.