No one is safe from the vampire craze, not even the buttoned-up, middle-aged critics gathered in Pasadena at today's CW leg of the TCA press tour. During the Vampire Diaries panel, the executive producers and actors discussed how they will differentiate themselves from one specific Kristen Stewart vampire flick and Williamson's most famous creekside series.
Creator Kevin Williamson, who also used the stage time to confirm that he is working on the Scream 4 script, admitted that "the pilot is tough because there are a lot of similarities to Twilight. There was no way around it. But we're switching things around as we get [deeper] into it. We're not a movie with a beginning, middle and end. We're a TV series that evolves."
In response to a critic's surmise that the show, premiering September 10, seems like "vampires coming to [Williamson's series] Dawson's Creek, Williamson said:
"We're not really going with that sort of heightened type of dialogue and stuff. We're just trying to stay true to the books in that sense. But it's not just a teen show. We're trying to not make it a high school show. It's sort of more of a -- you know, a small-town show."
Co-star Paul Wesley explained that he is going for a unique vampire approach and purposefully avoided seeing Twilight. Perhaps remembering the Edward Cullen mega fan demographic of the show, Wesley quickly added, "If there are similarities to Robert Pattinson's character in, so be it."