While the True Blood reboot was announced in 2020, the project’s lack of progress is bad news for any Twilight fans hoping to see more from the saga.
While the Twilight saga was a huge hit upon release, the fact that the True Blood reboot is struggling to gain momentum should temper any expectations for a revival of the Stephenie Meyers series. Vampires come in and out of vogue in pop culture, and they were never more popular than when Twilight’s movie adaptations arrived in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Indie hits like 30 Days of Night proved that audiences wanted vampires, HBO’s True Blood became a small-screen success with a dedicated fanbase, and Twilight’s movie adaptations made huge box office hits out of this trend.
Now, the early 2020s seem like fertile ground for a comeback for the genre of vampire movies and shows. Vampire Academy gained a new TV adaptation, Salem’s Lot is getting a big-screen remake, and both House of Darkness and The Invitation updated Dracula’s story for modern audiences. However, the fact that True Blood’s reboot still has not yet come together proves that a Twilight saga revival remains unlikely.
Compared to the Twilight saga, True Blood should have been a far easier series to bring back. First and foremost, HBO’s original True Blood was a TV show rather than a series of big-budget blockbusters, so a reboot of the series is a more modest proposal. Furthermore, not only did True Blood command a far lower budget and fewer major stars (with only Alexander Skarsgård being a bona fide A-lister), True Blood also had a less self-contained story. Unlike a Twilight reboot, new True Blood episodes could conceivably pick up where the earlier show ended because of how episodic the HBO series was. Despite all this, True Blood still can’t get a reboot off the ground, meaning a Twilight sequel is even less likely to happen.
Why True Blood’s Slow Progress Is Bad For Twilight’s Future
True Blood’s reboot was announced in December 2020, with producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa attached to the project. Since then, a dispiriting February 2022 update saw an HBO Content Officer admits that the show was nowhere near receiving a green light, essentially scuppering the hopes of fans who were anticipating True Blood’s return sometime soon. While this was not good news for True Blood viewers, it was even worse for Twilight fans who thought that the HBO reboot might signal good news for another huge late 00s vampire franchise’s return.
Unlike True Blood, the Twilight movie adaptions were slavishly faithful to the original novels, including the final movie’s happy ending. This left little room for the Twilight series to add a sequel to the franchise, since the original Twilight author Stephenie Meyer never wrote or approved a follow-up. While True Blood is stalling despite the series having numerous un-adapted books that the show could focus on, the Twilight saga would need to bring back A-listers like Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, commission an entirely new story, and then start pre-production on a potential reboot of the franchise. As such, it seems like the inability to get a True Blood reboot moving could crush any hopes for a Twilight revival any time soon.
