Danny McBride Gives Update on ‘The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires’ Series Adaptation

HBO announced a series adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s novel, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, nearly a year ago but news has since gone quiet. Series writer and executive producer Danny McBride provided THR with an update on the project that’s less than ideal.

Hendrix’s book, which was published in May 2021, is described as “Steel Magnolias meets Dracula.”

The series adaptation would see the novel’s author teaming with “The Righteous Gemstones” duo Danny McBride (Halloween 2018) and Edi Patterson to write. Hendrix, McBride and Patterson would exec produce, alongside Brandon James for McBride’s Rough House. Quirk Books, which published the novel, would also have an exec producer credit.

That’s if the series actually gets rolling. McBride reveals that progress has stalled. “We haven’t gotten much momentum on it,” he told THR. “Even at HBO, it’s tough making a 30-minute show ensemble that mixes genres. Really difficult. I love that property and would love to do something with it, but I don’t know. We worked on it for a bit and we weren’t getting the reaction to it that we were wanting. it’s sort of floating out there right now.”

McBride knows that the concept should be an easy sell in an age where genre sells. “Yeah, it’s all here. To me, it’s a no-brainer. I feel like HBO should just want to go greenlight that now. We should have moved right into shooting the pilot after we wrapped Gemstones. Maybe it’s just not what they’re looking for right now.”

The novel’s official synopsis:

“Housewife Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and paperback fiction. At these meetings, they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family murders as they are to discuss marriage, motherhood, and neighborhood gossip. This predictable pattern is upended when Patricia meets James Harris, a handsome stranger who moves into the neighborhood to take care of his elderly aunt and ends up joining the book club. James is sensitive and well-read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in twenty years. But there’s something off about him.

When local children go missing, Patricia and the book club members start to suspect James is more of a Bundy than a Beatnik—but no one outside of the book club believes them. Have they read too many true crime books, or have they invited a monster into their homes?”

Hendrix is the author of over a dozen books including My Best Friend’s Exorcism, which was adapted for film by Prime Video in 2022, and, more recently, How to Sell a Haunted House, which also as an adaptation on the way from Ghost House Pictures.

As of now, it doesn’t seem like we’ll see the adaptation of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, but stay tuned.

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