Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches series conjures up a series order at AMC

After reading the bones, AMC Networks has decided to conjure Anne Rice‘s Mayfair Witches series to order.

Based on The Lives of the Mayfair Witches, AMC has given the project an eight-episode order. The deal finds Mayfair Witches being written and executive produced by Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford, with Mark Johnson executive producing through Gran Via Productions. A writers’ room for the project was opened three months ago under AMC’s scripts-to-series model. Spalding will also serve as showrunner for Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, which according to Deadline, focuses on an intuitive young neurosurgeon who discovers that she is the unlikely heir to a family of witches. As she grapples with her newfound powers, she must contend with a sinister presence that has haunted her family for generations.

“The world of witches has fascinated and terrified for centuries, and yet Anne Rice’s particular lens on witches explored something new altogether – women who are powerful, and often brutal, and always committed to subverting our current power structures,” Spalding and Ashford said. “We are so excited to join our partners AMC and Gran Via Productions in making this mysterious and provocative world come to life.”

AMC acquired the rights to 18 titles from Rice’s pantheon last year, including the Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches series. Producer Mark Johnson is leading the charge when it comes to adapting Rice’s work to the small screen.

“My good fortune as an executive producer of ‘Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire’ has now been more than doubled with what Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford are imagining with The Mayfair Witches,” Johnson said. “While both shows couldn’t be more different, they nevertheless find themselves bound under the same bewitching and engaging umbrella.”

Rice’s work has captivated readers for generations, with many delighting in the author’s saucy interpretation of all things supernatural. I went to high school with a group of people who were positively obsessed with Rice’s work, and let me tell you, they really knew how to throw an orgy. I mean party. Yeah, party. That’s the ticket. I suspect that adaptations of Rice’s novels will enjoy a long afterlife on AMC as they continue to mine properties like the Vampire Chronicles, Mayfair Witches, and more.