Emmy winner Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog, Parks and Recreation, Space Force) has joined Chris McKay’s comedy-horror Renfield, according to Variety. Schwartz will join the previously announced Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, and Awkwafina in the Universal Pictures project.
Hoult will play Renfield, the familiar henchman of Dracula, who will be portrayed by Cage.
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In the original 1897 Dracula novel, R.M. Renfield was an inmate at a lunatic asylum who was thought to be suffering from delusions but is actually a servant of Dracula. The role was originated memorably in the 1931 movie by Dwight Frye, followed by Tom Waits in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula, then Peter MacNicol in the Mel Brooks parody Dracula: Dead and Loving It, and by Samuel Barnett on the TV series Penny Dreadful.
Renfield will be directed and produced by Emmy winner Chris McKay (Robot Chicken, The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie) from a story based on an original pitch from The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman and was written by Ryan Ridley (Rick and Morty).
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The movie will be produced by Skybound Entertainment’s Kirkman, David Alpert, Bryan Furst, and Sean Furst. Executive producers include McKay’s partner Samantha Nisenboim.
