Director Alex Proyas updates the status of Universal’s Dracula: Year Zero

By Jake Dee

Posted 17 years ago

Last Updated on July 26, 2021

Dracula. Now there’s a name sorely missed in the vampire subgenre right about now. If the dude could ever die, I bet he’d be rolling around in his filthy grave after seeing cinematic vampires turned into sparkled whiners with as much bite as a newborn. Well folks, looks like Alex Proyas has plans to unleash one of the oldest screen characters in history back on the masses in DRACULA: YEAR ZERO. And he’s just dished out an update!

According to a recent catch up with Techland, Proyas had this to offer:

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“Well I think I’m now working on a movie about the origins of Dracula – called Dracula: Year Zero. You never really know until you start shooting, but it sure feels like I’m working on it. We’re still in the budgeting and scheduling right now.”

He goes on to add:

“Why I’m so intrigued by this story – when someone originally suggested it to me, I was like, I’m so not into this; Dracula has to be the most filmed character in the history of movies – is that this script has such an interesting and original take on this character. It’s all about how Vlad of Transylvania became this creature; the choices that he made to make him into this tragic character. It’s so intriguing to me, to approach this as a character study on a huge, epic canvas. The script is from these two young guys who have never really done a script before, but they basically did their thing and have reinvented the whole context of this most familiar personality.”

A Dracula reinvention, ay? Definitely intriguing!

And those two young gents in question happen to be Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (who are both tentatively attached to write the reboot of FLASH GORDON, set for 2012).

As far as a “character study on a huge, epic canvas goes,” I’m not sure it gets much better than Werner Herzog’s NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT (1979) with Klaus Kinski (pictured above). Perhaps not huge or that epic, it remains one of the most sympathetic looks at Dracula in all the varied cinematic adapatations of the character. Guess we’ll see how this one pans out.

Rose Byrne, star of Proyas’ last film, KNOWING!

Source: Techland

About the Author

Jake Dee

Columnist / Reviewer

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Favorite Movies: Horror: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Silence of the Lambs, Jaws, Black read more Christmas (1974), Friday the 13th (1980), Return of the Living Dead, Halloween (1978), Last House on the Left (1973), way too many to list (in the horror genre alone, not to mention out of genre film) Non-Horror: Stand By Me, Lonely Are the Brave, Lost in Translation, Rushmore, Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Sling Blade, The Usual Suspects, Reservoir Dogs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Harold and Maude, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, and on and on and on and mothafu*kin on

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