Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, an adaptation of the first in a series of young adult vampire romance novels by Richelle Mead, will arrive in theaters on February 14. The poster shows the two leads Zoey Deutch and Lucy Fry with Deutch holding a stake in her hand. Mark Waters, the director of Mean Girls, directs from a screenplay by his brother Daniel Waters. The film will be distributed by The Weinstein Company.
In the books, series protagonist Rose Hathaway, the daughter of a vampire and a human, trains to protect her friend Lissa Dragomir. Both are students at the fictional St. Vladimir’s Academy. Lissa is one the Moroi, the good vampires in this universe, and is mortal unlike the evil, undead Strigoi. In an interview with Cinema Blend’s Kelly West, Daniel Waters expressed a fondness for the source material and an interest in adapting other books in the series if the first film is a hit. While he claimed that he did not change much from the book, he did admit that he did accelerate Rose’s training, likely for the benefit of action scenes.
Young adult vampire romance has something of a bad reputation thanks to The Twilight Saga. The financial success of that series has, arguably, lead to countless young adult novels with female leads getting film adaptations, most notably The Hunger Games. These new roles have gradually, sometimes clumsily, raised the profile of women in science-fiction and fantasy roles and Vampire Academy seems to continue that trend. Based on the premise, Rose sounds much closer to Buffy than Bella. We shall find out next month if Vampire Academy can rise out of the shadow of its more prominent cousin.
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