AMCInterview With the Vampire already shook things up in a major way when it rebranded as The Vampire Lestat in Season 3. The third season not only changed protagonists, switching from the perspective of the turmoiled vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) to the flamboyant Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), but it also transformed tonally and structurally to match. Gone were the tortured Gothic horror tones of Seasons 1 and 2; the show was now a frantic, racy rock opera.It was a shift fitting for the Vampire Lestat, who becomes a rock star in his crash-out over the publication of Louis’ Interview With the Vampire memoir (as one does). And it made sense for how the series approached Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles too, with the third season taking a mostly loyal approach to adapting The Vampire Lestat, the second book in Rice’s series. But The Vampire Lestat, the season, notably tells just one part of the story.Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Vampire Lestat.The Vampire Lestat’s shocking finale — in which both Lestat and Louis get beheaded by Armand’s followers as punishment for their flagrant violation of the Five Great Laws — built up to Lestat’s potentially world-shattering concert, which threatened to pitch the world into apocalypse (and would, based on the brief glimpse into the burning future we see in a flashforward with Lestat). But before we get to it, the episode ends. There’s no concert, no Great Conversion — yet. It’s one of the handful of major changes from the novel, which ends with Lestat performing his concert and awakening Akasha, the queen of the vampires, who destroys nearly all the vampires in attendance. It’s a pretty crucial plot point to leave out, but fear not — there will be another season of Interview With the Vampire, and in similar fashion to The Vampire Lestat, it rebrands the show once again. Why Is Interview with the Vampire Season 4 Called Queen of the Damned?Akasha (Sheila Atim) stirs from her slumber. | AMCAt San Diego Comic-Con 2026, AMC announced that Interview With the Vampire was renewed for Season 4, and it now goes under the title Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned. Things are changing behind the scenes too: Hannah Moscovitch will take over as showrunner for Queen of the Damned, while series creator Rolin Jones, who was showrunner for Seasons 1 through 3, will remain on as executive producer alongside Moscovitch and Mark Johnson.“In The Vampire Lestat, Mark, Rolin, Hannah and this extraordinary cast delivered an unforgettable season filled with propulsive storytelling that captivated the passionate and engaged fans of this franchise,” Dan McDermott, Chief Content Officer of AMC Global Media and President of AMC Studios, said according to The Wrap. “We can’t wait to continue the journey with ‘Queen of the Damned,’ one of the most iconic stories in Anne Rice’s mythology, and watch our established and beloved characters confront Akasha with their world, and ours, very much hanging in the balance.”Lestat’s music will wake Akasha... next season. | AMCMuch like how The Vampire Lestat adapted Anne Rice’s novel of the same name, Season 4 will adapt The Queen of the Damned, the third novel in Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (previously made into a 2002 film starring Aaliyah). The novel takes a different tack than the previous two installments, covering the events surrounding the world-ending concert from the different perspectives of Lestat de Lioncourt, Daniel Molloy, and Marius de Romanus. It also toggles back and forth between the concert and antiquity, when the vampires were first created through Akasha.Akasha (Sheila Atim) was introduced in The Vampire Lestat in a flashback sequence where Lestat was chosen as her guardian while she slumbered as a frozen statue in a crypt for centuries. His rambunctious ways briefly woke her long enough for her to feed from Lestat and vice versa, but she soon went back under the guardianship of the Vampire Marius (Christopher Heyerdahl). But even in her brief scene, she made an astounding impression, delivering a rousing monologue that felt terrifying and primal. If that was just a taste of what Atim’s Akasha can do, then Queen of the Damned might reign supreme over previous seasons.When is The Queen of the Damned Release Date?Queen of the Damned does not yet have a release date, but AMC did drop a teaser announcing the season renewal. It features another powerful monologue from Atim’s Akasha, urging the women of the world to “do what you have longed to do... kill them all.”With no new footage, it’s clear that production hasn’t yet started for Queen of the Damned. But based on the two-year gaps between previous seasons, we can likely expect Queen of the Damned to premiere on AMC sometime in 2028.