Finally, some good news: Nicolas Cage is going to play Dracula
Nicolas Cage will be playing Dracula in Chris McKay's Renfield, which stars Nicholas Hoult
Aux News Nicolas Cage
Life can be pretty hard, especially these days, with holiday-related stress piling on top of the regular concerns about climate change and COVID and fascism, but that makes it even more important to take the good news when it comes and cherish it as tightly as you can. After all, you never know when a piece of good news will be the last good news you ever get.
That introduction may have brought things down a bit, but don’t worry. This good news is some good goddamn news, and even though you’ve probably already read the headline on this article, here it is again: Nicolas Cage is going to play Dracula. Not just some vampire, not a creep who thinks he’s becoming a vampire, but the famous vampire. Freakin’ Dracula.
Everything beyond that is superfluous, but here are the details: This news comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says Cage will be playing Dracula in Renfield, the Universal monster movie directed by The Tomorrow War’s Chris McKay and starring Nicholas Hoult as the Count’s eponymous bug-eating lackey (as seen in Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel).
Renfield is supposed to be some kind of modern-day reimagining of the relationship between Dracula and Renfield, and it was written by Rick And Morty vet Ryan Ridley from a pitch by Robert Kirkman (the guy behind the Walking Dead comic).
A lot of that is interesting, especially the fact that Renfield will star a Nicholas and a Nicolas (who needs a Hollywood Chris when you’ve got these two?), but none of that matters when Nicolas Cage is playing Dracula. Can you imagine the voice he’s going to do? Will he do a big widow’s peak with his hair? Will he a swirl a cape around? Remember when people found a photo of Nicolas Cage as a vampire? God, this is exciting.
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“It’s a shitty, shitty job, Renfield… but you have to do it! Or I’ll fire you!”
I bet it is not as fun as Vampire’s Kiss.
Fuck a modern day reimagining. When are we going to get just a straight modern adaptation of Dracula or Frankenstein?
We got them in the 90s. One was awesome, the other was…not terrible, but not awesome either.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula was a weird Hammer Horror tribute act and .. there was a Frankenstein? When was there a Frankenstein?
It was so bad, it’s been largely forgotten despite its cast and production values: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109836/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_3
I really liked it. I admit it wasn’t wonderful, but it had its moments.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109836/reference
I talked to Frank Darabont at an industry luncheon weeks after Frankenstein was released and he had nothing but unkind things to say about what Kenneth Branagh did to his screenplay. I said I came out of the theater in a stupor over how bad it was. He said he was in a stupor for weeks.
There was one episode of the netflix Dracula miniseries that came out last year that took place in the modern day. It was made by the Sherlock people and overall was meh. Also I haven’t seen it but there was a 2015 “modern day reimagining” of Frankenstein—I only know this because it appears in Maya Erskine’s credits on IMDb. It seems to have flown under the radar despite having a solid b-list cast and directed by the guy that did Candyman, so I can’t imagine it being great either. They’re such popular stories that I’m sure more exist but the quality seems to be lacking…
“Nicolas Cage is going to play Dracula”.Not in a movie or anything. This is just what he’s doing with his life now.
Suddenly I’m looking forward to this. I really enjoyed the last time a Coppola worked on a re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Good one.
I’m glad I’m not alone in disliking that movie.
I just rewatched that movie a couple weeks ago, and holy hell does it hold up. Even Keanu’s much-derided performance is sort of weirdly charming. Kind of amazing that Wynona Ryder & Gary Oldman hated each other during filming, because good lord their chemistry is off the charts.
I remember seeing this with my future wife and when Keanu is laying in the vampire bed and all the hot lady vampires suddenly appear (including young Monica Bellucci, OOOFFF) and I blurted out “now that’s what I call a “perfect sleeper”” and she punched me in the arm. Don’t regret it at all. Plus the “practical” special effects in the movie were pretty cool.
It holds up pretty well. The last time I watched it I thought Keanu’s acting wasn’t as bad as the reputation he has for that movie (I think mostly for the accent), and that it was Wynona’s acting that was actually pretty bad in it.
He should have played Andy Kaufman back in 1999, rather than Jim Carrey.
Why would anyone take on these roles when George Hamilton and Arte Lange have already done it?
Tom Waits is Renfield.
You’ll not find a bigger champion of Tom Waits than me, but the stubborn reality remains. There’s no getting around the fact that Waits played the role in 1992, while Lange had already done his a full thirteen years earlier.
I used to watch that George Hamilton film when I was a kid. Good times.“Children of the night….shut up!”
They’d better give him a lot of screen time or this is going to be one of those movies where the tone radically shifts whenever Nic Cage shows up and does his thing.
very pumped for this; it was kismet that Cage play Dracula. Does this mean the whole Universal “monster” thing is back on (that I assumed Tom Cruise’s Mummy movie killed)? Because Depp as the Werewolf or Dr. Jekyll or whoever the hell he was going to play is still a bad idea.
He was going to be the invisible man, but we got a better version already.
Wait, you mean it’s not called Freakin’ Dracula?!
I bought a graphic novel called Renfield at the Westwood SECRET STASH location several years ago, is that the source material? I don’t remember who wrote it, but it was good.
I guess Cage can give Hoult tips on the insect eating.
Sounds suspiciously like a vampire comedy movie. I can’t think of a single vampire comedy movie I’ve really liked off the top of my head.
What We Do In The Shadows…
I have not actually watched What We Do In Shadows yet. Mostly because I’m leery of vampire comedies.