Ian Somerhalder may have played a vampire for eight seductive seasons on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries, but the actor will now have to face off against them in the new Netflix drama V-Wars.
The streaming service ordered 10 straight-to-series episodes of the new vampire series, and although a release date has not yet been announced, here’s everything we know so far.
The Story
Somerhalder will play Dr. Luther Swann, a man who is desperately trying to understand a strange and frightening disease that has turned his best friend, Michael Fayne, into a murderous vampire. The disease begins to spread and a battle for survival breaks out between the vampires and the humans who have not been affected.
As Swann attempts to learn more about the disease, including a way to stop it before more people are transformed, his friend Fayne rises to power among the dark underground world of vampires.
The Source Material
The upcoming Netflix series is based on the IDW graphic novel V-Wars by author Jonathan Maberry. The writer debuted the popular franchise in 2012 with the release of the first novel, which focused on the horrific murders committed by “patient zero” and the subsequent war that erupted due to acts of vampire terrorists.
Maberry continued to release books in the series up through 2016, including V-Wars: Blood and Fire, V-Wars: Night Terrors, and V-Wars: Shockwaves. The novels are considered political thrillers, and it will be interesting to see how much of the source material actually makes it onto the show.
How Is It Different Than The Vampire Diaries?
Remember at the end of the last decade when there were vampires everywhere we looked? From Twilight to True Blood, vampires were really having a moment when Somerhalder first started playing bad boy Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries in 2009. But the long-running CW show came to an end in 2017, leaving an opening in media where vampire content once reigned supreme.
And although Somerhalder will be able to bring his understanding of the genre to his new Netflix series, including when he serves as a director on a few episodes, that may be where the similarities between the two shows end. Although The Vampire Diaries managed to get dark at times, it was mostly marketed towards teenagers and focused on romances between its main characters. V-Wars, on the other hand, will be premiering on Netflix, which means we can expect a lot more blood, gore, and violence, in addition to more adult themes.
Will you be following Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries to V-Wars when it eventually debuts?
