EXCLUSIVE: First the bad news: Kevin Williamson’s potential companion series to Vampire Diaries is not happening, at least for now. The Vampire Diaries co-creator Williamson has notified the CW that his busy schedule on Diaries, which he is executive producing with fellow co-creator Julie Plec, has not allowed him to focus on fleshing out and writing the new project, about a group of people who investigate paranormal happenings.
Now the great news. Williamson has come on board another CW drama project, Secret Circle, which is based on a three-book series from The Vampire Diaries author L.J. Smith. It centers on a California teen who moves to her mom’s hometown of New Salem and discovers that she is a witch. To complete the reunion, the project hails from Alloy Entertainment and WBTV, the companies behind Diaries. It was first set at the CW in October with Angel alums Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain as executive producers and Andrew Miller as writer/exec producer. Williamson is now working on the script and serving as an executive producer on the project, which, with its auspices, has emerged as a strong contender for a pilot pickup. Just like with the potential Diaries companion, on which there was talk about Plec joining Williamson, while not currently attached to Secret Circle, Plec could come on board in the future.
In each of the past 3 years, the CW ordered 6 hourlong pilots. So far this season, the network has ordered 5 pilots: Danni Lowinski, Awakening, Hart of Dixie, Heavenly and Cooper and Stone. In keeping with tradition, the network will likely make another pickup, with Secret Circle and the music-flavored Acting Out among the top candidates.
Here’s to the CW and WB for recognizing Andrew Miller. He’s a fantastic writer (and actor) whose talents have been have too long gone under-used in Hollywood. Secret Circle sounds very cool!!
Too true! His CW pilot for GINGERSNAPS was amazing – smart, sassy, sexy – a really refreshing, intelligent, and entertaining voice in the genre world.
The Vampire Diaries: Bonnie’s Spinoff
UMMMM not even close. Read the books.
Doesn’t Vampire technically have two showrunners?
Ouch if it takes two to roll that dung-ball up the hill.
This sounds great. Big Kevin Williamson fan.
Williamson, Craft and Fain are all extremely talented people. I’m very excited for this!
Umm I know for a fact that “Acting Out” is NOT in contention to get picked up
its an awful script
Thank God the C-DUB gots Kevin Williamson, he’s keeping that whole ship afloat and taking some of the sting off Dawn’s idiocy. For some reason I see her underlings and DV peeps casting out buckets of water frantically while Dawn continues to shoot holes in the sinking ship.
Note to DV peeps: Let her shoot herself in her foot and make alliances with someone else. Writing’s on the wall — Dawn’s on her way out the door.
So I take it Kevin Williamson is not going to be writing Scream 5 anytime soon…
It’s so odd how he initially was talking about a “new trilogy” of Scream films while he was writing Scream 4. Then once Scream 4 starts filming he refuses to even acknowledge that the movie exists.
I’d like to know what’s going on between Williamson and the Weinsteins….
I’m bringing this up only because I can’t believe that Williamson & Co. and the CW aren’t actually considering this: the obvious thing would be to kill two birds with one stone and spin The Secret Circle out of The Vampire Diaries. I mean, it’s not as if both book series weren’t created by the same author.
That makes perfect sense if you don’t think about it.
They really should. As a childhood fan of the books, and an adult fan of TVD, I think it’d be very easy to link the two, especially since they have established that Bonnie has connections to the Salem witches (rather than the Druids like in the books). Just a bit of finessing, and one could make an easy leap to TSC from TVD.
I am a childhood fan of LJ Smiths work as well and I think they should keep them as seperate as possible because I absolutely hate what they have done with Bonnie on TVD.
Heavenly is AMAZING! I read the script and it is incredible!
I read the Secret Circle books when I was a tween and LOVED them! I really hope the show is as great as the books.
Big fan of Miller’s Imaginary Bitches work. A wickedly funny concept that was really well done. Glad to see that his voice will get to a broader audience.
What about the Michelle Trachberg Pilot???
Any updates on Raven? I was really excited for that one.
Yay! Glad to hear that Kevin Williamson is joining the secret circle. This show sounds really interesting so I hope it gets picked up as a pilot.
yeah Raven and The Secret Circle should get picked next!!