We’ve known for a while that Invisible Man was just the beginning of Universal’s “let’s try this again” revival of its monster series (after the Dark Universe flopped). Now, there’s another classic joining the list of upcoming projects: a brand-new take on Dracula from a director with major horror cred.
That director, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is Karyn Kusama, whose relevant filmography includes creepy thriller The Invitation and the high-school-is-literal-hell cult classic Jennifer’s Body; she also made Aeon Flux and Destroyer and has quite a bit of TV experience, including an episode of HBO’s The Outsider.
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THR reports that Kusama’s Dracula “would take place in modern times,” much like Invisible Man recently did to both critical and box-office success. (Dracula is already having a bit of a boom lately, between the Dracula Netflix miniseries and the in-development ABC drama The Brides, but presumably this version will be a significantly different one to either of those.) Frequent Kusama collaborators Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay are writing the script.
The trade is quick to point out that since this film isn’t officially set up at Universal yet, and Dracula is actually in the public domain, the Blumhouse-produced project “technically could be made at another studio”—but “that is highly unlikely given that Blumhouse has a first-look deal with the studio, and Universal isn’t about to let one of its iconic monsters escape the fold.”
The studio currently has a number of horror movies in development, including a Dracula spin-off—though if there’s room for both Invisible Man and Invisible Woman, this mad monster party seems poised to welcome every available ghoul to the table. We’ll bring you more on Kusama’s contemporary Dracula as it’s announced.
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