Things We Saw Today: Professional Vampire Ian Somerhalder Will Star in Netflix’s Supernatural V-Wars

It looks like Ian Somerhalder’s about to be surrounded by the undead once more. This is kind of his thing!

Somerhalder, a man comprised of impressive cheekbones and eyes of indefinite color, starred as the somewhat reformed bad boy vamp Damon Salvatore on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries for roughly a century (and before that, as somewhat reformed bad boy Boone on Lost, technically another “are they dead or not?” drama). He’ll next be sinking his teeth into the more adult vampire series V-Wars. Based on the Jonathan Maberry IDW graphic novels, V-Wars has been ordered to a ten-episode season for Netflix.

This time around, however, Somerhalder will be letting others do the bloodsucking. He’s set to play the main character Dr. Luther Swann. THR explains Swann’s predicament:

[He] enters a world of horror when a mysterious disease transforms his best friend, Michael Fayne, into a murderous predator who feeds on other humans. As the disease spreads and more people are transformed, society fractures into opposing camps pitting normal people against the growing number of these vampires. Swann races against time to understand what’s happening, while Fayne rises to become the powerful underground leader of the vampires.

There was a moment in time around the rise of Twilight where it seemed as though vampire content was everywhere, but it seems to me that we have a decided lack of vampire-related media at the moment. V-Wars sounds like something I’d watch, even though it’s guaranteed to be a lot bloodier and more violent than the more teenage-focused Vampire Diaries. Netflix’s supernatural series are generally done well, or at least slickly enough to make for a fun binge-able weekend.

Somerhalder still has a huge following of ardent TVD fans who will likely follow him into the V-War trenches, and IDW seems pretty damn excited about his casting:

“We could not have dreamed of a better choice than Ian Somerhalder to bring his keen understanding of this genre from his years of starring in The Vampire Diaries to lead the cast of V-Wars as Dr. Luther Swann and to be a creative force on this series, as well as to serve as a director this season. We are thrilled to partner with Netflix to bring the multifaceted world that Jonathan Maberry created to audiences worldwide.”

(images: The CW)

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So what’d you spot today?

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