Interview with the Vampire is a 1994 American gothic horror film directed by Neil Jordan, based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, and starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

A stand-alone sequel, Queen of the Damned, was released in 2002, with Stuart Townsend and Matthew Newton replacing Cruise and Banderas respectively.

Despondent following the death of his wife and unborn child, he drunkenly wanders the waterfront of New Orleans one night and is attacked by the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt.

They spend weeks planning a voyage to Europe to search for other vampires, but Lestat returns on the night of their departure, having survived on the blood of swamp creatures.

Claudia demands that Louis turn a human woman, Madeleine, into a vampire to be her new protector and companion, and he reluctantly complies.

Shortly thereafter, the Parisian vampires abduct the three of them and punish them for Lestat's murder, imprisoning Louis in an iron coffin to starve to death slowly and trapping Claudia and Madeleine in a chamber, where sunlight burns them to ash.

Seeking revenge, Louis returns to the theater at dawn and sets it on fire; killing all the vampires including Santiago.

He returns to New Orleans in 1988 and one night encounters a decayed, weakened Lestat, living as a recluse in an abandoned mansion and surviving on rat blood as Louis once had.

So when I was given the opportunity to make Interview with the Vampire, I thought, "Oh, it would be really great to expand on that epic sense of darkness and to give these characters huge, kind of romantic destinies and longings and feelings.

"[8]Author Anne Rice adapted her 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire into a screenplay with French actor Alain Delon in mind for the role of Louis.

[12] Due to Rice's perception of Hollywood's homophobia, at one point she rewrote the part of Louis, changing his sex to female, in order to specifically heterosexualize the character's relationship with Lestat.

[14] Originally, River Phoenix was cast for the role of Daniel Molloy (as Anne Rice liked the idea), but he died four weeks before he was due to begin filming.

[23] Brad Pitt admitted in a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly that he was "miserable" while making the film and even tried to buy himself out of his contract at one point.

[24] Pitt called the production "six-months of f---king darkness" because of the almost-exclusive night shoots,[26] filmed mostly in London in the depths of winter, which sent him into a depression.

[28][29] Director Neil Jordan was initially hesitant to use Stan Winston Studios, because they had gained a reputation for specializing in large-scale animatronics and CGI with Jurassic Park and Terminator 2: Judgment Day; Interview with the Vampire was going to require mostly makeup effects.

[6] Winston designed the characters' vampire appearances and makeup effects, including a technique for stenciling translucent blue veins on the actors' faces.

[30] This required the actors to hang upside down for 30 minutes, so that the blood would rush to their heads and cause their veins to protrude, enabling the makeup artists to trace realistic patterns.

[30] The scene where Claudia cuts Lestat's throat was achieved by transferring from Tom Cruise bleeding from a prosthetic wound to an animatronic model designed to "wither" as it bled out, enhanced with CGI blood.

Winston also sculpted the rough model for the charred remains of Claudia and Madeleine, using archival photographs of victims from Hiroshima for inspiration.

The site's consensus reads: "Despite lacking some of the book's subtler shadings, and suffering from some clumsy casting, Interview with the Vampire benefits from Neil Jordan's atmospheric direction and a surfeit of gothic thrills.

The vampire Lestat, the most commanding and teasingly malicious of Ms. Rice's creations, brings out in Mr. Cruise a fiery, mature sexual magnetism he has not previously displayed on screen.

[44] The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing "the movie never makes vampirism look like anything but an endless sadness.

[45] He also praised the casting of Cruise and added, "Dunst, perhaps with the help of Stan Winston's subtle makeup, is somehow able to convey the notion of great age inside apparent youth.

'"[46] More critical reviews noted the compressed nature of the film adaptation "left out information crucial to understanding the characters' behavior".

[44] In Variety, Todd McCarthy wrote while the film "has its share of riveting moments" and bears a "wonderfully evocative mood", what is "missing is a strong sense of emotional exchange and development among the main characters.

The intense bonds of love, resentment and hatred that arc through the centuries among Lestat, Louis, the vampire he creates, and their 'daughter,' Claudia, are only lightly felt".

[79] Almost a decade after this film, an adaptation for the third book in the series, The Queen of the Damned, was produced and distributed once again by Warner Bros. Cruise and Pitt did not reprise their roles as Lestat and Louis.

However, Rice's son, Christopher, apparently had drafted a screenplay based on the novel that was met with praise from those involved in the developmental stage.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were named as producers, and the deal included the aforementioned screenplay for The Tale of the Body Thief written by Christopher Rice.

[87] In November 2016, all plans for a theatrical reboot were scrapped, with Rice announcing she had regained the rights to her novels and intends to create a television series starting with The Vampire Lestat.