Hacker Cinema
The Vampire Diaries
2009 · TV series · 43 min episodes · 8 seasons
Created by Julie Plec, Kevin Williamson
The story of two vampire brothers obsessed with the same girl, who bears a striking resemblance to the beautiful but ruthless vampire they knew and loved in 1864.
1 mixed1 neutralfrom 2 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
2 comments on Hacker News
Actually it's a great premise, but it is overshadowed by the "cool teen" factor which plagues other shows on the CW (though Arrow has mostly been able to escape that..for now).
The Vampire Diaries is a good example of what being on the CW does to a show. It started out in the first two seasons as a dark, violent, mostly serious take on the "teenage vampire" trope, and could be enjoyed by both teens and GenX/GenY fans of the vampire genre. It has a pretty good cast (Nina Dobrev's "Katie Holmes v2" notwithstanding). After those first seasons, however, it devolved into the stereotypical teen drama + nonsensical mysticism. Eventually, after seeing a school dance or town festival as the main plot device every two episodes, I had to stop watching it. My wife still watches, but she tends to enjoy the occasional plotless teen drama.
I'm glad you brought up White Wolf v. Sony. I think Penny Arcade's response at the time summed it up pretty well:
Comic: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/09/08
Post: http://penny-arcade.com/2003/09/08/
However, despite following the case closely at the time, I've never heard about any negotiations between White Wolf and Sony at any stage of the film's development. On the contrary, emails from within White Wolf indicate they were completely unaware of the film until the first trailer was released. Do you have a source for your claim that there were negotiations?
To answer your question: nothing stops a studio from piggybacking on someone else's concept, and nothing should. The Asylum's entire business model is based on it (though they also engage in the somewhat unethical practice of copying names, when they can). White Wolf has no claim to the basic ideas underpinning the World of Darkness. There's nothing unique or innovative there.
The same thing applies to The Vampire Diaries (books and TV show), Twilight (books and film), True Blood (books and TV show), and so on, of course.