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| "My biggest fear is I don't want to be split between the two shows and I don't want to water myself down and hurt either," he tells THR about possibly having to balance two series in the fall. |
With the CW's red-hot drama The Vampire Diaries continuing its breakneck speed and new pilot The Secret Circle -- also a L.J. Smith property -- waiting in the wings, will Kevin Williamson be juggling both shows come fall?
That is, if the latter gets greenlit to series.
“My biggest fear is I don’t want to be split between the two shows and I don’t want to water myself down and hurt either,” Williamson tells The Hollywood Reporter. Two years ago, when The Vampire Diaries was awaiting official word on a series pickup, vital CW series at the time included Gossip Girl.
“My goal is for Julie [Plec] and I to stay focused on The Vampire Diaries, and Andrew Miller and his team will be in place and we will help and guide him along the way [on The Secret Circle],” he says. “I’m not going to step away from my vampires. I’m too invested at this point; it’s too much of a family for me to walk away from, but there’s room in our day for me to help guide The Secret Circle along the way.”
For now, Williamson says Plec, who also executive produces The Vampire Diaries, is not a part of The Secret Circle project. (Recently, executive producers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain departed.)
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In discussing the differences between the two projects, Williamson emphasized the shows' distinct qualities -- even though fans have noted similarities with the settings and the fact that witches play pivotal roles in both. The Secret Circle pilot, which stars Life Unexpected's Britt Robertson and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' Thomas Dekker, centers on a girl who learns she is part of a coven of witches.
“Those similarities exist, but the mythology is completely different,” Williamson says, adding that he and Miller (Imaginary Bitches), who adapted The Secret Circle from the book, wanted “the show to be a companion piece” to The Vampire Diaries and not a “carbon copy.”
Some have even hinted at the idea of a potential crossover with The Secret Circle, set in the North, and The Vampire Diaries, set in Mystic Falls, Va. But Williamson rejects any possibility of that. “The witches in The Vampire Diaries are not in the same universe. We’re not connecting them; there are no crossovers,” he says. “There are no vampires and werewolves in the witch world in Secret Circle.”
But the TV/film vet did tease what viewers could be expecting.
“You’ll watch us build another mythology based on L.J. Smith’s books that will become as twisty and turny as The Vampire Diaries [is] but with a whole new story,” Williamson explains. “There’s an epic love story that we hint at in the pilot that is going to blow up about two soulmates. It’s not as violent as The Vampire Diaries or as scary.”
