'Let The Right One In' TV Series Heads To Showtime With Demián Bichir Starring
Almost 15 years after the Swedish film adaptation of author John Ajvide Lindqvist's adolescent vampire drama Let the Right One In captured the attention of the international film world, a TV adaptation may finally make its way to the small screen.
Showtime is the latest company to attempt an adaptation, giving a pilot order for what they're calling an "elevated genre series." Oscar nominated actor Demián Bichir (A Better Life) will produce the show and star as "Mark, a husband and father who had the perfect life until it was turned upside down by a mysterious creature who bit his daughter and then vanished into the night."
According to a press release from Showtime, Andrew Hinderaker (Away, Penny Dreadful) will serve as the showrunner and executive producer along with Seith Mann (Homeland, Blindspotting), who is directing the pilot episode. Here's the official description of the show:
Inspired by the original hit Swedish novel and film, the series centers on a father and his 12-year-old daughter whose lives were changed forever 10 years earlier when she was turned into a vampire. Locked in at age 12, perhaps forever, Eleanor lives a closed-in life, able to go out only at night, while her father does his best to provide her with the minimal amount of human blood she needs to stay alive. With these emotionally charged and terrifying ingredients as a starting point, Let the Right One In will upend genre expectations, turning a naturalistic lens on human frailty, strength and compassion.
Hinderaker says this show will be "both a love letter to the original film, and a story entirely our own," and aspires for this to be "one of the most terrifying shows on TV, and one of the most moving." That's a big bar to clear, but with such excellent subject matter, they might actually be able to do it. The adult/vampire relationship at the center of the 2008 film is one of the most heartbreaking in the entire genre, and if this show is anything like the film, it will ask the audience to root for Bichir's character despite him doing some absolutely abhorrent things. There's a richness and a complexity to this story that could work well on television, and I hope they're able to make something that lives up to the quality of both the 2008 film and Matt Reeves' 2010 remake, Let Me In.
A&E was developing a Let the Right One In TV series back in 2015 before the project moved to TNT, but it was abandoned in 2017. Here's the trailer for the original movie: