The Tale of the Body Thief this feeling to William Blake's poem The Tyger, which is quoted piecemeal throughout the entire novel: At the end of the story, Lestat realizes with horror that he must have been the "tiger" of his visions. In 2007, "The Tale of the Body Thief" was rumored to be adapted into film as United Artists was interested in purchasing the film rights to the novel. Rice announced via her Facebook profile on February 7, 2012 that Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's film production company, Imagine Entertainment, had optioned the motion picture rights to the novel. Lee Patterson was to have written
Burning Bright was too long and too literary by the producers of the play led to the change to the shorter excerpt from the same poem: "Burning Bright". Friend Ed has been pointed out as one in a line of characters inspired by Steinbeck's best friend Ed Ricketts. At the time Steinbeck wrote "Burning Bright", Ricketts had recently been killed in a car accident, and as well as reflecting his friend's character in that of Friend Ed, it is thought that the settings of the circus and the sea may have had significance for Steinbeck: he had apparently been at the circus