Hollywood's Most Powerful Vampires

From Forbes.com , Yes the business paper !

We're talking movie and television characters, not agents and executives. Which are the most popular and most lucrative?

Last week, the co-chief of HBO stood in front of a throng of television critics raving about the premium network's latest success. Though previous landmark series were built on gangsters and urban fashionistas, the latest ratings coup for the hitmaker is built around … vampires.

It's not surprising that True Blood has been a boon to Time Warner's ( TWX - news - people ) HBO. Since Bela Lugosi hit the screen as Dracula in 1931 these bloodsuckers have proven to be near-sure-fire moneymakers for Hollywood, tapped and retapped by producers looking to lure bodies into seats.

In Pictures: Hollywood's 10 Most Powerful Vampires

"Vampires have become a substitute for fairy tales that adults couldn't tell themselves anymore," says William Patrick Day, professor of cinema and English at Oberlin College and author of Vampire Legends in Contemporary American Culture: What Becomes a Legend Most. "Vampires are dangerous and sexy and powerful and they have what humans want--immortality."

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