When Luke Evans was announced as the star of this origin movie, it was still titled DRACULA YEAR ZERO. But, Universal must have realized it was an unnecessariyl complicated name for the film and truncated it to the simple DRACULA. Along with that new moniker, the studio is dropping the horror film right into the mix with next year’s summer blockbusters by giving it a release date of August 8, 2014.
The Gary Shore directed movie will be Universal’s first attempt to revive one of their classic monsters characters since Joe Johnston‘s underwhelming THE WOLFMAN back in 2010. This new take on DRACULA will flesh out the backstory of how Prince Vlad became the titular bloodsucker. Here’s the plot of the new DRACULA:
The script tells of a young prince who, when the lives of his wife and child are put in danger by a bloodthirsty sultan, risks his soul to save them, and in the process becomes the first vampire.
DRACULA has been told countless times on the big screen, so it will take something unique to set this apart from the previous incarnations portrayed by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, Gerard Butler, and Richard Roxburgh. Luke Evans will be seen next in FAST AND FURIOUS 6 and then later in the year in THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG. He is a talented actor who will bring an interesting presence to DRACULA. My only question is will audiences respond to seeing the horror icon portrayed as somewhat of a hero. Hell, it seems to be working for Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter on the small screen, why not at the movies as well?
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