After Sweden, Spain is the second European country (as far as I know) to air True Blood. December 4th is the big date for the first episode.
In Spain True Blood is called Sangre Fresca, which means Fresh Blood and on the website you can hear what Sookie and Bill sound like when they speak spanish.
And the winner is… Alan Ball
Alan Ball & “True Blood”
“True Blood” is hands down my favorite new series since “Lost” debuted in 2004 and Alan Ball is the main reason for that. As the creator and guiding hand he deftly ushers the show as it tackles topical issues – racism, sexism, homophobia, vampaphobia – in a totally un-preachy way.
Funny, dramatic, terrifying, sexy and thought-provoking, “True Blood” is exactly the kind of show cable was created for. It pushes boundaries and rewrites vampyric lore, posing a fascinating question: Does love truly know no race, creed, color or pulse?
source: PopWrap
More than 2 million viewers sampled the Nov. 23 finale of HBO’s vampire-tinged True Blood drama series.
The series, based on Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels with Anna Paquin in that role, averaged 2.4 million viewers in its finale, nearly double the 1.4 million viewers for the show’s Sept. 7 premiere, according to the network. Overall the series, which also stars, which also stars as Stephen Moyer as Sookie’s vampire love interest Bill Compton, sucked up an average of 2.2 million viewers during its 13-episosde run.
HBO is hoping the cume showings of the finale will exceed the 7 million viewers the show is averaging thus far.
HBO has already ramped up production for True Blood’s sophomore season.
source: Multichannel.com
The first season of True Blood has come to an end. And what a season it was!
In last night’s finale storylines were concluded: the killer was killed, Jason was released and Bill and Sookie are back together as they should be. And new storylines keep the fans anticipating the next season.
Is it really Lafayette in Andy’s car and is he dead? What is Maryann up to with Tara and what happened between her and Sam? Has Jason become a Jesus-person? And what is Bill going to tell Sookie when she finds Jessica in his house? And there is also romance in the air: looks like Tara and Eggs might be an item and what about Terry flirting with Arlene!
It is going to be a long, cold winter! According to the latest news, they will start shooting Season 2 in early January and it air in May or June. The Season 1 DVD should be on sale right before that.
I just discovered this article (thanks to True Blood Italia) on the National Post. Anna Paquin says that she signed up for 7 seasons of True Blood. That doesn’t mean that there will be 7 seasons, but she is up for it!
Let’s face facts: vampires walk amongst us, and it’s only a matter of time before these creatures of darkness overthrow humanity and start to harvest our blood for their own nefarious purposes. Yay! But what would happen if Japanese scientists developed a synthetic substitute for blood that quenched their unholy urge? That’s the idea behind HBO’s new series True Blood – airing in Canada on Movie Central and The Movie Network. In this strange world – adapted by Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball from the Southern Vampire Mystery Books by Charlaine Harris – vampires, who no longer must feed on people to survive, have “come out of the coffin” and are ready to fight for their civil rights. Winnipeg-born, New Zealand-raised actress Anna Paquin stars as Sookie Stackhouse, a vamp-loving waitress in small-town Louisiana who harbours a dark secret. She recently spoke to the Post’s Mark Medley.
How’d you get involved in True Blood?
Well, I was sent the pilot script, and it was Alan Ball, and it was HBO, and I read it, fell in love with it, and auditioned over and over and over again until the said yes.
When you say “over and over and over again,” how many auditions do you mean?
About five.
What was it about Sookie that lured you in?
First of all, the whole world is just so intriguing and odd yet completely real in that all these relationships and the emotional storyline is based in reality. Then you have these fantastical elements, because obviously it’s a show about vampires. And Sookie, she’s so strong and so brave and tough but so sweet and vulnerable and innocent and kind of fearless. [She] just has so much going on. It’s not like one of those female characters where they had to choose between her being sweet and feminine and pretty or tough and strong. She kind of gets to be both. And gets to be at the centre of the action. And is this hopeless romantic, when it comes down to it. [She’s] just so many things. I love that, because that actually gives you a lot to work with as an actress. Sometimes the girl parts aren’t as interesting.
Charlaine Harris wrote on her forum that the premiere for Season 2 is planned for may 2009. And that the DVD of Season 1 will be for sale around the time the second season begins.
source: CharlaineHarris.com
Alan Ball’s vampire drama, adapted from the Sookie Stackhouse book series by Charlaine Harris, has steadily gained momentum on the pay-cable service. Viewership for Sunday premiere episodes, now at 2.7 million, has nearly doubled since the show’s debut Sept. 7. All told, 6.8 million are watching each episode each week.
Seven of the Harris titles are on USA TODAY’s 150 Best-Selling Books list. And though still far from the heights achieved by The Sopranos and Sex and the City, Blood has eclipsed a string of recent HBO failures, along with the once more-popular Entourage. Both end their seasons Sunday (9 and 10 p.m. ET/PT).
“It’s an old-fashioned Saturday-matinee-movie kind of serial,” says Ball, who tackled death, if not the undead, in the network’s Six Feet Under. “People are having fun in this world.”
The world centers on Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a waitress in small-town Bon Temps, La., who has a thing for 170-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). But she’s also smitten with her boss Sam (Sam Trammell), lately revealed as a shape-shifter. In the world of True Blood, vampires have been begrudgingly accepted in society, and some quaff a synthetic drink (from which the show gets its title) to satisfy their bloodlust.
Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight, another book series due today as a feature film, are obvious targets, others less so. “It’s not really my go-to genre,” Moyer says, “but I was absolutely captivated by it. Once you start watching it, it’s not just a vampire show; it’s sort of a high-class soap.”
Compton “is trying desperately to hold onto some semblance of humanity and conscience,” Moyer says. “There’s some kind of idealistic streak in him where he isn’t just a warm-blooded killer. And it has the obvious metaphors of the South, and sexuality and any outsider group in a society; I love that idea of (viewers) bringing their own metaphor to the table.”
HBO programming chief Michael Lombardo says Blood has performed well for a new series against tough competition, though it has not been aggressively promoted since its opener.
“Normally the first episode is your high-water mark, but to see this (audience) build is satisfying,” Lombardo says. “It’s very nice to have a show on the air that our subscribers are clearly enjoying. It’s funny and dark and sexy and scary, and it’s smart.”
In Sunday’s finale (9 ET/PT), Ball says “Sookie makes a choice” between Sam and Bill, one character dies, and the ongoing murders, blamed on Sookie’s oversexed brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten), will be solved after hints were dropped last week.
This season was based on Dead Until Dark, Harris’ first book in the series and the best-selling title. The next is based on the second, Living Dead in Dallas, which finds Sookie spending time in that city. Several characters “get involved in what they think is a legitimate church,” Ball says. And a new creature “will create much havoc and chaos.”
Production will resume in January in Los Angeles and Louisiana, and the show will return with 12 new episodes next summer, an unusually short break.
source: USAToday
On The True Blood Wiki you can now cast your vote in a dozen categories. Who is your favorite actor? Who would you like to bite? What is your favorite sex scene? Cast your vote in the True Blood Superfan(g)s’ Choice Awards!
HBO will release several widgets today that should hook fans deeper into “True Blood,” a television series from the Southern Vampire Mysteries supernatural/mystery books by Charlaine Harris that has attracted numerous loyal fans.
The widgets were developed by Wetpaint, a Seattle-based wiki that supports 1.2 million sites. About 100 are branded by Fox, Showtime, Discovery, T-Mobile and others. Dubbed “Droplet” to signify a drop of paint–or in this instance, a drop of blood–the widgets offer “True Blood” fans three ways to take content from the HBO series to post on social networks, from MySpace and Facebook to iGoogle and more.
Research firm eMarketer estimates that U.S. companies will spend a mere $40 million in 2008 to create, promote and distribute widgets– up from $15 million in 2007. And while widgets have garnered far more attention than actual ad dollars, it hasn’t stopped HBO from providing the option to fans.
In fact, HBO has been the most aggressive brand when it comes to engaging with the audience or allowing fans to take content and post it on other sites, according to Wetpaint CEO Ben Elowitz. HBO has also created “True Blood” promotional videos. The comments splattered throughout the video come from fans who posted on the Wetpaint “True Blood” forum, where the thread count stood at more than 900 as of Wednesday afternoon.
Picture This, Wiretap and Site Satellite are three widgets created to entertain fans. While Picture This lets fans create widgets filled with still photos and videos, Wiretap is the tool that fans use when taking along the discussion forum to other sites, and Site Satellite pulls together all the happenings on the wiki. Consumers can paint the widgets in Lightbox, Blackground or Sauna Chic.
About 80% of traffic comes to Wetpaint’s branded sites from search engines–many of which create their own content. “By getting users to add content, you end up with so much more in the search engines that we literally see–especially in the case of “True Blood,” each week about 300% more page views than the week before,” Elowitz said.
Visitors to the “True Blood” wiki site stay 61% longer than on HBO’s traditional site. Each fan contributes about six posts to the forum. The average time that visitors remain is 10 minutes on the Wetpaint wiki, compared with six minutes on HBO’s main site.
source: mediapost.com
