The Vampire Diaries Marketing: Confused or Smart? [ Updated ]

The Vampire Diaries, the new CW show that is taking Smallville’s old time slot on Thursdays, seems to have some sort of confused marketing scheme going on.

At one point one of the stars, Paul Wesley (pictured on the left), said that “Chicks dig vampires,” but then later said that was a scripted line for him to say, given to him by the network.  He wants people to know that is not how he really thinks.

He’s also been noted to say that there is very little makeup time for the actors who play vampires, and Wesley went on to further add that makeup time, working with children and animals is never fun, no matter what anyone says.

He’s even complaining about having to do cardio workouts every morning to stay in vampire shape, saying it sucks.

My first take on his statements is that they’re… confusing.  Is he really that grumpy about his job?  Is he already in Diva mode?

Then I started to ponder a little more and I have to wonder if with all the media attention the CW is trying to generate on the new show, if it’s just possible that his statements are all in character?  I ask that because Wesley’s character hates being a vampire and is in conflict with his dark, vampiric side.  Hence, my wondering.

The Vampire Diaries is about Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), a vampire who moves to Mystic Falls, Va., and falls for local gal Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrey). His brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), would love to just drain the local population, but Stefan wants to protect his love and possibly other humans too.

The show will also include flashbacks to the Salvatore brothers’ earlier days, (during the Civil War period for example).  It seems that they will be exploring that part of the brothers lives to give them some depth.

The show is based on L.J. Smith’s series of books.  And as it’s been pointed out to me in the past, this is not a copy of Twilight, seeing as how this book series predates the Twilight series. Now the idea of televising a vampire amongst humanity story, well, that’s as old as time itself it seems.

As it stands, I will give it a try to see how it fares.  But one wrong move, and I’m going to write the CW and ask for a crossover episode with Supernatural, and request that the Winchester brothers end this show properly!

[ Update ]

When I first wrote this article, I was basing my opinionated perspective on my initial source.  It was pointed out to me by a reader that there was more to the interview than met the eye, so I went to check it out.

It was a pretty lengthy interview and in that interview Paul Wesley did indeed have some things to say that if you focused on them, would make his answers seem a bit off, but in the reality of the full, at-length article he’s quoted to saying that he found the character appealing, he’s eager to tackle some of the stunt work, he talks about his character struggling with his dark side and other items.

Of note, are a few paragraphs that should be stated in full:

Q: How is the make-up for this?

Paul: Make-up is never fun. I don’t care what anybody says. Make-up is never fun. Neither is working with children or animals. Nobody wants to show up at six in the morning to get make-up. Good news is that we don’t have a lot of make-up. We really don’t. We have these contact lenses that we put in. I’ve worn contacts my whole life and it’s not a problem for me, so it really hasn’t been very bad.

And:

Q: What is your work-out regime? Has it changed now that you’re in Atlanta?

Paul: I’m trying to lean out as much as I can. I feel like vampires are these svelte creatures whose nutrition is essentially animal blood, so I knew that I couldn’t eat all these different carbs and sugars because it just didn’t feel right, physically and mentally. So, I’ve been limiting my intake, just because I feel like that’s what Stefan does, every day. For the first time in my life, I’ve been doing cardio. I’ve played sports, my whole life, and now I’m doing it, every morning. It sucks.

So Screen Rant thought we should clear this up, and for the full article, check out the IESB post.

Source:  Sci-Fi Wire; IESB