An in-depth look at 4 projects in development
Until 1992, this budding horror fiend’s diet of Dracula films was abundant with Universal’s output in the ’30s and ’40s and Hammer’s vibrant, sexual revival in the ’60s and ’70s (I was never a fan of the John Badham version in ’79 with Frank Langella). Then Francis Ford Coppola came along with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, amplifying the sex and violence and introducing audiences to the back story of Vlad the Impaler (aka Vlad Dracul or Vlad Tepes), the man who inspired the Dracula legend.
In this bloody, creature-filled, hyper-stylized fever dream of an adaptation, Vlad is a knight in the Order of the Dragon who fights against the Turks and returns home to find that his woman has killed herself over some misinformation. He freaks out and renounces God. Stabs a cross (which bleeds). Says he’ll avenge her death by defying his own, furthermore, when he returns from the grave he’ll have “all the powers of darkness.” Hence the whole drinking blood, crawling walls, sleeping in a coffin, shape shifting thing that follows⦠But prior to Coppola’s version, written by James V. Hart, the Vlad/Dracula-as-we’ve-always-known-him connection was never fully realized except for in a 1975 documentary called In Search of Dracula in which Christopher Lee played Vlad. Yes, Lee, Hammerâs regal and deadly Dracula.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula took creative liberties with the Vlad/Dracula story, naturally, and it certainly re-opened the crypt door to other filmmakers eager to explore the legend even further. In 2000, Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula aired on television starring Rudolf Martin (strangely enough, that same year he played Dracula in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Dimension Films’ Dracula 2000, with Gerard Butler, rewrites history and posits the bloodsucker is really Judas Iscariot (wowie wow wow!). 2003’s Vlad finds Francesco Quinn playing the eponymous warrior. And David Goyer reworked the Dracula history to meet his universe’s needs in Blade Trinity.
Now, thanks to pop culture’s rekindled fascination with vampires (a tip o’ the hat to you True Blood and Twilight), Hollywood is eager to resurrect Count Dracula. Four projects are on the horizon. Two have been in development for a few years, another one is on the fast-track and another is a tale currently in book form that’s actively seeking a production company. Two scripts are similar in nature in that they are origin stories, recalling Hollywood’s competitive streak when Volcano went up against Dante’s Peak and Armageddon took on Deep Impact. But how many Dracula stories do we really need? I sat down with this quartet of bloodsucker stories to see if any of them are worth anticipating or if they should have a stake driven through their hearts. Read on for a breakdown!
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
