How many more twists on the vampire genre can filmmakers find? Given that the undead creatures of the night have been around for ages, the answer appears to be: plenty. So it should be no surprise that a production company has snapped up the rights to Christopher Farnsworth’s thriller novel Blood Oath, which sees a fanged type serving on the secret service.
The book, which arrives in US bookstores today, features Nathaniel Cade, a bloodsucker captured by the Union Army shortly after the Civil War. In exchange for sparing him, Nathaniel swears loyalty to then-President Andrew Johnson and spends the next 150 years protecting the Commander in Chief.
According to the Heat Vision Blog, Warp Films founder Lucas Foster, who last produced Law Abiding Citizen, has snapped up both Oath and follow-up tome Black Site, which Farnsworth is still busy scribbling. The first book finds Nathaniel assigned a new human partner/handler and set to investigate a deadly plot involving a terrible biological weapon.
"It’s a big idea and it’s an idea that in the wrong hands could have been cheesy," Foster says. "Chris did a very good job of making the reader, and me, buy it. It’s the right tone between thriller and improbable fantasy."
A vampire James Bond? In the service of the US President? Bet the Tea Party folk would love that one. In fact, a few probably already think Farnsworth’s book belongs in the non-fiction section.