The Twilight Renaissance is still upon us. With the fifteenth anniversary of the books approaching, the tenth anniversary of the films just passed, and the long-awaited Midnight Sun released in the height of the pandemic, fans of the story continue to interact with and relate to the movies and books.
The Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson-led project isn't the only vampire adaptation popular among young adults. The CW show The Vampire Diaries, based on the books by L.J. Smith, resulted in two spin-offs, The Originals and Legacies, and the popular book series Vampire Academy just received its second adaptation. While Twilight may have kicked off the modern vampire craze, both with the release of the books and the adaptations, other properties are continuing that legacy and paving the way for others.
With the popularity of vampire media, it only makes sense for Hollywood to consider adapting other book series that have been successful. Here are three that should be next in line for adaptations, even if they were optioned previously.
House of Night Should Be a Series
House of Night is written by the mother-daughter duo P.C. and Kristin Cast. It follows the adventures of Zoey Redbird, a 16-year-old that wakes up one morning to find a crescent moon shape on her forehead. This is the sign of a fledgling vampyre, so she's sent to the House of Night boarding school.
However, Zoey is not like other fledging vampyres. Rather than the crescent moon presenting as a blue outline, it is filled in, which typically only happens when a fledging transitions to being an adult vampyre. She also has an affinity for all five elements (fire, water, air, earth, and spirit), which is incredibly rare. The series follows her trying to fit into the vampyre world despite her clear differences and as she clings to certain aspects of her human life, like her sometimes boyfriend Heath.
House of Night consists of 12 books, a spin-off series with four books, and four novellas. With so much content, the series would be best served as a television adaptation. Like the Vampire Academy adaptation on Peacock, a show would give writers room to include all the information over the span of several seasons but cut out unimportant or superfluous details across the dozen books. A film franchise with 12 films may not be feasible, but a series with four seasons is.
The rights for an adaptation have been sold twice. During the books' original release, film rights were optioned by Michael Birnbaum (John Tucker Must Die) and Jeremiah Chechik (Reginald the Vampire), with Lionsgate lined up to distribute. However, this fell through, and the movies never came to fruition. They weren't even cast, and based on what little information is available, only outlines of screenplays were ever written.
The next time was in 2019, when Deadline revealed the producers behind the popular Freeform series Shadowhunters had optioned the books for television. Since the announcement, there has been no other news on the series. Will this adaptation fall through as well? It isn't clear why these deals are never reaching our screens, but maybe there is still hope that fans of the books will have a show soon.
My Blood Approves Could Be a Film Franchise
Though the book series doesn't have the same widespread acclaim as the others on this list, it has made records as a self-published series. Amanda Hocking self-published My Blood Approves, the first of five books, in 2010 alongside her other paranormal romance series, the Trylle Trilogy.
Within the year, she was averaging 9,000 books sold a month and had grossed $2 million, according to an article by The New York Times Magazine. This was practically unheard of for self-published authors at the time. Her success resulted in signing a publishing deal with St. Martin's Press, which traditionally published her books.
My Blood Approves follows Alice, a teenager that's thrown into the world of vampires after she meets Jack. While it seems as though she's destined to be with his brother Peter, things change when he rejects her, and she falls for Jack. Over the course of the books, her younger brother becomes a vampire, and the siblings learn more about their ancestry and how it may have predisposed them to the vampire lifestyle.
The series has never been optioned for film, which is a loss. The books have relatable themes, a different vampire concept than the others on the market, and a love triangle for the ages. Like Twilight, it could have one film per book to create a five-film saga.
Crave Could Be The Next Twilight
Tracy Wolff has several pen names, but under her Wolff byline, you'll find her young adult vampire romance series Crave. The series follows orphaned teen Grace, who has been sent to Katmere Academy, an illusive boarding school run by her uncle. Like House of Night, Crave follows a boarding school home to the paranormal. Like Twilight, Grace is instantly drawn to a vampire that holds his cards close to his chest.
The series currently has four books, with two more due out in the next year. Each one has a title that starts with a C and a cover oddly reminiscent of the Twilight books. While the first cover is the most obvious due to the color scheme, the rest keep the format while changing the background color.
Like House of Night, Crave was previously optioned for film. Deadline announced in 2020 that Universal had snagged the rights, but nothing has come of it. There's still time for the film to be developed.
While you wait to see if these adaptations ever come, check out who we think who the best character in Twilight is.