New Dracula Movie Coming from Blumhouse
Blumhouse has tapped Karyn Kusama to create a new Dracula movie for Universal.
“To die, to truly be dead,” Bela Lugosi said in Hollywood’s classic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, “that must be glorious.” But beloved monsters never die, no matter how many stakes you drive through their hearts. They are rebooted. Following the box office and critical success of The Invisible Man, Jason Blum’s Blumhouse production banner is looking to resurrect Dracula, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While Universal hasn’t officially signed on, they do have a first-look deal with Blumhouse and a cloakroom of capes for the Transylvanian Count.
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Universal has learned some lessons since unwrapping The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, in 2017. That film was one of many recent attempts to create a cohesive modern Universal Monsters cinematic universe and was a very expensive critical and commercial failure. Leigh Whannell made a contemporary version of H.G. Wells’ 1897 science fiction novel The Invisible Man for $7 million and it looks like it will earn $100 million on top of the general goodwill it has earned with audiences and critics. All that’s known about Kusama’s new Dracula at the moment is that it will take place in modern times and be shot on a modest budget. The project is almost certainly unrelated to the Renfield movie Universal announced at the end of last year.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel first came to the screen as Nosferatu (1922) directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, because Stoker’s widow Florence never gave permission to use the name. Lugosi played the iconic vampire on stage before starring in Universal’s Dracula in 1931. In 2014, Universal cast Luke Evans as the vampire in Dracula Untold, and turned it into an action film as it explored the origin story of Vlad the Impaler.
The first wave of Universal’s horror franchise – which included Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein, (1935), Werewolf of London (1935) – ended with 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter. It returned with 1939’s 1943’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which ushered in the cinematic crossover genre.
Stoker’s original novel is in the public domain and has been remade by countless other studios. Hammer Horror’s casting of Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing are almost as definitive as Lugosi and Edward van Sloan. Frank Langella reprised his 1977 Broadway take on the charming bloodsucker for Brides of Dracula series in development for ABC.
There is no word yet on casting, production or a Dracula release date.
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Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment…