In 1987, hot off the success of the film St. Elmo’s Fire, director Joel Schumacher, who had only directed comedies until that point, released a horror film called The Lost Boys. Infusing it with some of the humor he was already known for and backed up by a pretty strong soundtrack, the movie became a cult classic that helped launch several careers, including Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jami Gertz. It was also the first of nine movies (and a reality show) to feature The Two Coreys, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.
Rob Thomas, the creator of Veronica Mars and co-creator of Party Down and iZombie, has been working on making a series based off the film The Lost Boys. Thomas is working with The CW, the same network on which iZombie is about to air its third season.
In an interview with Collider, Thomas was asked how different his series will be from the film, and referenced J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan stories about Neverland:
The story that I’m trying to tell in season 1 of The Lost Boys is a story about two brothers and how tempted they are to fall in with these vampires and how tempted they are to want to be 22 forever. I am leaning into the Peter Pan notion of, if you join these vampires, you never have to grow up. Your life can be fun and you can attack life each day you’re immortal, and how appealing is that? I read a bit about what the original writer’s intentions were, and how a lot of that Peter Pan imagery got pulled away from what they ended up doing. I’m pushing it back in there.
Having two brothers is certainly similar to the film. In The Lost Boys, brothers Michael and Sam move to the beach town of Santa Carla with their mother, where Michael becomes a half vampire when he tries to impress a young woman and fit in with a rebellious motorcycle gang - who also happen to be vampires. Though much younger, Sam takes it upon himself - and his comic book reading friends Edgar and Alan Frog - to save Michael before he becomes a full vampire. The movie focused a lot on the relationship between Sam and Michael, the latter of whom was trying to balance being a big brother and normal teen with being the man of the house. Keeping a brotherly relationship at the core of the story is very true to the original.
The inspiration from Peter Pan is also a part of the film, which is why it is called The Lost Boys. In Peter Pan, the lost boys were a group of boys who fell out of their carriages when no one was looking and went to live on the island of Neverland, where they never grew up. Similarly, the group of vampire boys in the movie enjoy their eternal youth quite a lot. Even the movie’s tagline almost sounds like an advertisement for being a vampire: “Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.”
Another trait that the movie shares with Peter Pan is that in both stories, the leader is looking for a mother for the lost boys. Whether that concept will be another element of the show remains to be seen.
There is currently no date set for The Lost Boys to premiere, so keep an eye on Screen Rant for all the latest updates.
Source: Collider
