Soon after The Witch (watch it HERE) premiered at Sundance in 2015, it was announced that director Robert Eggers would be taking the helm of a remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic Nosferatu (watch that HERE)… and now that seven years have gone by without the film going into production, Eggers is starting to fear that the project has been cursed by the ghost of Murnau.
A few weeks ago, it was made public that Nosferatu was recently put on hold because musician Harry Styles had been cast, then had to drop out of the project due to scheduling issues with his new album. Speaking with IndieWire, Eggers said,
It’s fallen apart twice. I’ve been trying to get the word out because the word did carry that Harry Styles was going to be in the movie. I just want to be clear that he was going to be Hutter and not Nosferatu himself. … I’ve been trying so hard. And I just wonder if Murnau’s ghost is telling me, like, you should stop.”
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Of course, Eggers’ Nosferatu wouldn’t be the first time Murnau’s film has been remade. Director Werner Herzog did his own remake in 1979. About that, Eggers said,
Herzog’s movie — for me, and I love Herzog, he’s one of my favorite directors — but I do feel like it is uneven. Love the score, love [Isabelle] Adjani, love [Klaus] Kinski, but, like front-lit night scenes, what? That’s just Herzog doing Herzog. But the best sequence of that movie, for me, is getting to the castle with Das Rheingold, and I don’t even know if it makes sense in the film even though it’s awesome. But at the same time because of German history and German cinema history, it was his right to do that film, and he needed to do that film. I don’t know. Maybe Murnau’s telling me I don’t have the right.”
An unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu has the following synopsis:
In this highly influential silent horror film, the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) summons Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen (Greta Schroeder). After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok’s servant, Knock (Alexander Granach), prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.
It’s not clear if we’ll ever see Eggers’ take on the material, but in the years since his Nosferatu was announced we’ve gotten The Lighthouse (watch that HERE), and his Viking epic The Northman is scheduled to receive a theatrical release on April 22nd.
If Eggers’ Nosferatu does get made, his The Witch and The Northman star Anya Taylor-Joy is attached to play a role.
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