Moviegoers are about to be up to their (succulent) necks in vampire movies. Currently in theaters is non-mainstream vampire fare like the Russian film Day Watch, the very limited release Rise: Blood Hunter and the short film "Quartier de la Madeleine", which is Vincenzo Natali's lame contribution to the otherwise enjoyable compilation Paris Je T'Aime. But on their way to multiplexes near you are the big-deal vampire pics Castlevania, I Am Legend, 30 Days of Night, Daybreakers, Cirque du Freak, Dracula Year Zero, The Un Dead, Hotel Transylvania, Bloodrayne II: Deliverance, Already Dead, Town Creek and Blood: The Last Vampire. And straight to your rental queue is Lost Boys 2: The Tribe. This isn't even counting a lot of the vampire indies being made right now.

Officially added to the pile now is Sony's adaptation of Elizabeth Kostova's novel The Historian. The movie was announced two years ago when the studio paid seven figures for the rights to the book, which hadn't yet hit stores. Finally, long after watching the novel become a bestseller (it was ranked #28 for 2005 by Nielsen BookScan), the studio is finally moving forward with the movie. Sony has hired former child actor (Starship Troopers) and singer ('Aladdin' in Aladdin) Brad Kane to write the script. According to producer Douglas Wick (Hollow Man), who is overseeing the project with his Red Wagon partner Lucy Fisher, it has taken two years to find just the right person to capture the novel's sexiness and its credibility. Kane has been rising as a screenwriter recently, having scripted an upcoming film titled These City Walls and having done rewrites on the Richard Pryor biopic, Live. The plot of The Historian deals with a young woman searching for her father who is in turn searching for the grave of Vlad the Impaler (the inspiration for Dracula).

One of the first rules for an aspiring screenwriter is to never write a screenplay about vampires. I'm not sure why it's a rule or where it came from, but it's one I've heard time and time again ... even though Hollywood continues to pump out vampire flick after vampire flick. In an attempt to take hold of what went right with the Blade trilogy, as well as correct what went wrong, Phoenix Pictures and Mike De Luca Prods. have acquired Charlie Huston's novel Already Dead with an eye to adapt it for the big screen. Since it's the first book in a whopping five-book series, we're looking at yet another vampire-related franchise, should the first pic catch on. Huston's second novel in the series, No Dominion, just recently hit bookstores.

According to Variety, story includes all the blood-thirsty ingredients required to tell an entertaining vampire tale. Our main character is a vampire/private detective who's hired by a socialite to find her missing daughter. However, along the way he must battle a vicious virus that's transforming the city's vampires into man-eating zombies. Vampires, zombies and the perfect role for Clive Owen -- does it get any better than that? How about I tell you the guy who penned Kangaroo Jack is writing the script? Now, doesn't that have you all giddy with anticipation? To be fair, Scott Rosenberg did a wonderful job adapting High Fidelity for the big screen, but he's also responsible for such gems as Con Air and Gone in Sixty Seconds. Hmm, Nicolas Cage as a vampire private detective with an odd twitching problem? I can see it. Can you?