Guillermo Del Toro, FX Adapting ‘The Strain’ For TV!

This is some awesome news for Del Toro fans (read: pretty much everyone)

Deadline reports that a TV adaptation of the acclaimed vampire series The Strain is in the works for FX.

Del Toro himself, along with Chuck Hogan actually wrote the source material, and both will be handling the TV rewrite. Del Toro is also set to direct the pilot of the adaptation!

Deadline states that Del Toro originally envisioned The Strain as a television project. Networks weren’t interested however, and it was turned into a novel instead. The networks then came crawling back, but their pleas went unanswered until after the trilogy was completed.

Carlton Cuse (Losl) is set as showrunner, and will concurrently be running the A&E Psycho prequel Bates Motel. In an interview with Variety, Cuse spoke of the series, stating “These are very scary vampires, these are not romantic vampires. They will give you nightmares.”

The synopsis of the novels opening helps further this claim:

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFKand is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim “Eph” Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing.

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city – a city that includes his wife and son – before it is too late.

It sounds terrifying, and it sounds perfect for a network like FX. I don’t get any Vampire Diaries vibes from this one either (no offence fans), meaning we may actually get some vampire horror back on TV!

Today is actually the first I’ve heard of the series, but it sounds extremely intriguing. The pilot isn’t set to shoot until next September, so you’ve got lots of time to get acquainted with the novels!