Gary Oldman Preparing for Release of First Novel

Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) and producer-manager Douglas Urbanski are getting ready for the 2016 debut of their co-authored Blood Riders book series! The longtime collaborators have been working on the story for the past six years and are currently finishing the manuscript for the first of three novels in the Western-inspired vampire saga.

In an interview with Deadline, Urbanski revealed how he and Oldman developed the story of Blood Riders after being encouraged by literary agent David Vigliano to write about their real-life adventures:

I couldn’t think of anything more boring. But back in 2009 when Gary was filming Book [o]f Eli, we came up with this story that had to do with vampires. […] We met several times in my kitchen, mapped out the story and where it would go, reinventing the rules and realities of vampires and sex and the power of love. There were rabbit trails that went nowhere, but we concluded that we had landed on something we hadn’t seen done before.

The plot must be something special, with Urbanski noting that they received four offers from the five publishers they met with in 2014 while promoting Oldman’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Emily Bestler Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, will be bringing Blood Riders to readers’ hands late next year.

On whether the team anticipates adapting the books to the screen, Urbanski stated that there are no firm plans in place:

First concern is to make sure the book comes out and is really good, and we are planning a series of three of them. The first one ends leaving you needing to know what becomes of Magnus, the hero who had a curse placed on him by a vampire.

Look for Blood Riders to hit shelves and digital storefronts in October 2016, with a paperback edition following in autumn 2017. Will you be picking up a copy? Let us know below!