Universal and Imagine Entertainment have snapped the rights of the entire Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice.

The deal gives the studios 12 completed books in the series and any future books that Rice might write for the series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Imagine already bought the option for the Christopher Rice written screenplay to Tale of the Body Thief.

Rice has one upcoming novel in the series, Prince Lestat due out in October. Ten of the novels are part of the main series, while there are two others that are related.

Previously Interview with the Vampire was adapted into a film in 1994 with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in the starring roles, and in 2002 Queen of the Damned was released.

Bobby Cohen is on board to executive produce the films, while Erica Huggins will oversee for Imagine. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman will produce, adding to Kurtzman's large list of responsibilities.

He was already tapped to help oversee Universal's planned reboot of the studio's classic monster movie franchises with Chris Morgan.

In late the July, the first project became The Mummy reboot and Kurtzman will direct the film based off Jon Spaihts script, which Kurtzman and Orci worked on as well.

image courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com