PASADENA, Calif. -- The CW is hoping if you love "Twilight," you'll like "The Vampire Diaries" (8 p.m. Sept. 10).
After a press conference today, executive producer Kevin Williamson ("Dawson's Creek") acknowledged The CW was specifically looking for a vampire show after the success of "Twilight" in theaters last fall. But the new series is based on a book series by L.J. Smith that pre-dates the "Twilight" books.
"The premise is the same -- girl meets vampire -- but once we're past that premise," Williamson said it will diverge from the "Twilight" story. "Really quickly we're telling stories about a small town and who is this vampire who comes to town and stirs it up."
Williamson said he was concerned about the show being seen as a rip-off of "Twilight."
"No one wants to do that," Williamson said, adding that he initially rejected the notion before agreeing to it because he wanted to work with executive producer Julie Plec ("Kyle XY").
"Vampire Diaries" follows vampire brothers -- good Stefan (Paul Wesley, pictured above) and bad Damon (Ian Somerhalder) -- who move to a small Virginia town. (The show is filming in Covington, Ga., near Atlanta.) Stefan falls in love with the human Elena (Nina Dobrev), who resembles a woman from his past.
"Prior to shooting the pilot, I had never seen 'Twilight,'" Wesley said, deflecting comparisons to the performance by Robert Pattinson in the hit movie. "I went out of my way to let it not influence me because I knew it was a similar subject matter."
He's seen parts of the movie since.
"I was impressed," he said. "It has this super-youthful following and I found it engaging. I was relatively surprised."
Posted
Aug 04 2009, 12:34 PM
by
Rob Owen