"Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire." Earlier this year, it was reported that The CW ordered a pilot episode for a potential The Lost Boys series based on the 1987 horror movie of the same name, and now the roles of Sam Emerson and his grandpa have been cast.
Deadline reports that Rio Mangini (pictured above in Everything Sucks!) will play Sam in The Lost Boys pilot episode, with Del Zamora (True Blood, RoboCop, Repo Man) on board to play Sam's grandfather, Frank Garcia.
In 1987's The Lost Boys, Sam was played by the late Corey Haim, while Grandpa was portrayed by the late Barnard Hughes.
According to Deadline, in the pilot episode, Sam's "high level of literacy is matched by an equally high level of snark. He seems to be the only one not enchanted by Santa Carla — a sentiment he shares with a pair of local girls, the Frog Sisters." Frank Garcia, meanwhile, is a "cantankerous old hippie who owns a beloved local bed and breakfast. In spite of his laid-back appearance, he’s a strict disciplinarian who probably knows more about the dark side of town than he cares to tell."
Lovers of the original film will no doubt recognize similarities between these character traits and their source material from the film, but there are some deviations, too, including Grandpa owning a bed and breakfast in the pilot episode.
Deadline previously revealed that this time around, instead of the Frog Brothers battling bloodsuckers on the boardwalk, it will be the Frog Sisters, played by Cheyenne Haynes and Haley Tju.
Deadline also previously reported that Tyler Posey (MTV's Teen Wolf, Blumhouse's Truth or Dare, the yet-to-be-released third season of MTV's Scream) has been cast as Sam's older brother Michael Emerson (the character played by Jason Patric in the original film). Also in the cast is Kiele Sanchez, who will play Michael's mother, Lucy (played by Dianne Wiest in the movie), as well as Medalion Rahimi, who will portray Stella (based on the character Star, played by Jami Gertz in the film), and Dakota Shapiro, who will play David, the leader of a group of boardwalk bloodsuckers (the character was iconically played by Kiefer Sutherand in the movie version of The Lost Boys).
Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Red Riding Hood, Lords of Dogtown) will direct The Lost Boys pilot episode from a script by Heather Mitchell (Grey's Anatomy, Scandal). Rob Thomas (iZombie and Veronica Mars) had previously been developing The Lost Boys series, and he'll serve as executive producer alongside Mitchell, Dan Etheridge, Mike Karz, and Bill Bindley, with Rebecca Franko on board as a producer.
In addition to the casting news, Deadline revealed the following plot details for the potential Lost Boys series, which shares several key elements of its big screen predecessor, with a few intriguing twists:
"...The Lost Boys is set in sunny seaside Santa Carla, home to a beautiful boardwalk, all the cotton candy you can eat…and a secret underworld of vampires. After the sudden death of their father, brothers Michael (Posey) and Sam Emerson move to Santa Carla with their mother, Lucy (Sanchez), who hopes to start anew in the town where she grew up. But the brothers soon find themselves being drawn deeper and deeper into the seductive world of Santa Carla’s eternally beautiful and youthful undead…
Still mourning the death of her husband, Lucy (Sanchez) is forced to move back home to Santa Carla — something she’s dreaded since causing a town scandal 27 years ago, when she ditched her boyfriend to run off with another man.
Lucy’s elder son Michael’s plan to attend Columbia Medical school is thrown off by the diagnosis that he shares the same genetic weakness that killed his father. The only thing that consoles him is the friendship he strikes up with Stella, a young woman who runs a concession stand on the Santa Carla boardwalk.
Stella, carefree and Californian, has an immediate spark with Michael, but she’s not single: Her boyfriend is the sexy, dangerous and immortal vampire David, who is sometimes scary and always intense. The leader of a vampire gang, he’s wildly in love with Stella, who’s the only one who can control him."
The original The Lost Boys movie featured a star-studded cast that included Jason Patric, Dianne Wiest, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Jamison Newlander, Billy Wirth, Alex Winter, and Chance Michael Corbitt, as well as the late Corey Haim, Edward Herrmann, Brooke McCarter, and Barnard Hughes.
Years after the original movie came out, two sequels—Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008) and Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010)—were released on home video.
Before it becomes a full series, we'll have to wait and see if The Lost Boys pilot episode will convince The CW to give it a full series order, and we'll be sure to keep Daily Dead readers updated on further details on the new version of the beloved 1987 film.
Del Zamora:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
