 Warner Bros. was already into its last year of owning motion picture  rights to the first three Vampire Chronicles books which would then  have transferred back to author Anne Rice (qv), who could then  sell the rights to another company of her choosing. Knowing what  little time they had left, despite the fact theyve had the rights  and opportunity to make the latter two movies for over seven years,  Warner Bros. hastily hired writers to condense the books "The  Vampire Lestat" and "Queen of the Damned" into one movie with the  latter being the movie title.