Is Snow White director Rupert Sanders set to direct Tom Cruise in dark Van Helsing reboot?

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Tommy Cruise as VAN HELSING? I’m thinking he’s far too short…

Be that as it may, Twitch has it on good faith that not only Tom Cruise is in early discussions to star as the titular vampire slayer, but that SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMEN helmer Rupert Sanders is in talks to direct. Again, no official offers have been made to either man, but it seems Universal is keen on reteaming with both (SNOW WHITE, OBLIVION) to bring Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman adaptation to the big-screen. We shall see how it all pans out…

As for the material itself, some encouraging words about the harder edge taken with the character were expressed by Orci in June:

“Well, I don’t want to give away too much, because we are actually at the very beginning of talking about what to do with it. But I do feel like the Van Helsing that Anthony Hopkins plays in [Bram Stoker’s] Dracula is sort of the parody version of it, and the Van Helsing that Hugh Jackman played was obviously in a different place as well. I think that these kinds of movies have evolved a lot since then. You know, The Dark Knight was a major, major corner-turning moment in the way that genre and superhero stories could be told. Really grounded in reality. Really grounded in really cool things. That’s what I’d like to do without sacrificing the fantasy element. We aspired to do that as well on Trek, you know, keep it “real.” That’s such a different franchise than Batman, but that’s really what we wanted to do. And we’d love to do that with Van Helsing.”

So what do you think? Are Cruise and this Sanders fella (both seen above) the right match for the material? If not, who is?