The CW's The Lost Boys reboot pilot casts Lincoln Younes as lead vampire Benjamin. Released in 1987, the original Lost Boys film was part of a small wave of cool vampire movies that included the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Near Dark and, a little later, Francis Ford Coppola's epic Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stylishly directed by Joel Schumacher and featuring career boosting performances by Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric, the film would come to be considered an important '80s cult item and would serve as an influence on works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and What We Do in the Shadows.
Like almost everything '80s related, Lost Boys is now being targeted for a nostalgia-mining reboot. The CW indeed first began developing its Lost Boys reboot series as long ago as 2016, but the path from idea to screen has been a long and difficult one. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was brought on to direct a pilot in 2019, but the network decided to pass, and went on to order up a second pilot featuring a reworked script. None of the actors hired for the original pilot were expected to be brought back for the second go-around.
As reported by Variety, the second Lost Boys pilot has begun filling out its own cast, tapping Younes to play Benjamin, the lead vampire. Played by Sutherland in the original film, Benjamin was the ultimate cool vampire, a sexy and rebellious bad guy figure who just happened to also be a bloodsucking cannibal. The new version is expected to keep the original movie's basic premise, which features two brothers finding themselves on opposing sides after one of them is bitten by a vampire, though the location has been shifted to North Carolina.
Before being brought on to follow in the footsteps of Sutherland, Aussie Younes appeared in a number of TV series, including the ABC drama Grand Hotel and the Australian shows Love Child, Hiding, Home and Away and Tangle. His film resume includes the 2019 horror-comedy Little Monsters and the 2016 drama Down Under.
As previously mentioned, the original Lost Boys served as a big influence on several works that carried the vampire tradition into the 21st Century, and played a big role in establishing the cool and sexy vampire tropes that are still prominently at play in pop culture. Now, things will come full circle and the original cool, sexy vampire movie will become a cool, sexy vampire series at The CW (which already gave fans The Vampire Diaries). Assuming of course the network decides to go forward after the second pilot is delivered. The fact that The CW has gone ahead with a second pilot at all demonstrates how badly the network wants to sink its teeth into the sexy vampire action of The Lost Boys.
Source: Variety