Just about every other of his movies is a sequel these days, but Tom Cruise never did return to play the famed immortal blood drinker Lestat de Lioncourt, which seems a missed opportunity as a large number of sequels known together as the Vampire Chronicles (this movie’s sub title) were already in print.

Interview with the Vampire was a box office hit with his performance largely praised by critics and movie goers alike, the next two novels, the Vampire Lestat and Queen of The Damned had Lestat as the main protagonist, whilst in Interview he was only the villainous vampire with Brad Pitt’s Louis de Pointe du Lac having most screen time.

If Cruise had returned as Lestat with Neil Jordan and his team involved, we’d see little of Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas as their characters did not feature much in the next two stories, Lestat would of taken centre stage in two movies with the first sequel ending on a cliff-hanger building up to an exciting climax in Queen of the Damned.

Instead we got an inferior sequel years later, with little in common with the book and no connection to this movie, although Aaliyah and Vincent Perez gave great performances.

Other vampires took centre stage in later Vampire Chronicles such as Armand and Marius de Romanus, but Tale of the Body Thief could of worked as a good spin off if Cruise wanted to play Lestat a fourth time, and the recent Prince Lestat for a fifth.

I’d take Lestat Lioncourt over Ethan Hunt or Jack Reacher any day, Lestat still remains one of his most iconic and best remembered roles.