Director Karyn Kusama has teased her Dracula reboot will be different from other adaptations of the source material. Kusama was announced as the director of the new adaptation back in March, following the the box office success of Blumhouse's The Invisible Man. The BBC recently aired a brand new iteration of the character in the series Dracula, which also premiered on Netflix in January 2020. The series, which was met with mixed reviews, followed the vampire's origins in Eastern Europe and contained several differences from the novel. However, the show included facets of the original story that other adaptations had left out.
The new Dracula reboot will be based on the beloved novel by Bram Stoker. The story follows Count Dracula, a vampire that relocates from Transylvania to England, in order to find fresh blood and spread his deadly curse. As a result, a battle begins to brew between the vampire and a group of people led by a man named Abraham Van Helsing. There have been countless adaptations of Stoker's novel, including 1958's Dracula starring Christopher Lee, 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula starring Gary Oldman, and more recently in 2014, Dracula Untold starring Luke Evans. The latter created a new origin story for the iconic character, straying away from the story of Stoker's novel.
In an interview on The Kingcast (via Bloody Disgusting), Kusama teased her Dracula reboot will be different from other adaptations of Stoker's novel. When discussing her approach to the reboot, she states, "It’s a fairly faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel." She goes on to say:
I think something that gets overlooked in the adaptations of Dracula in the past is the idea of multiple voices. In fact, the book is filled with different points of view. And the one point of view we don’t get access to, and all most adaptations give access to, is Dracula himself. So I would just say in some respect, this is going to be an adaptation called Dracula, but it’s perhaps not the same kind of romantic hero that we’ve seen in the past… in past interpretations of Dracula.
Kusama has received acclaim for her previous films, including Destroyer and The Invitation. She also helmed the teen horror film, Jennifer's Body, which starred Megan Fox and has become a cult favorite in the years following its release. Kusama has also directed several episodes of Billions and Halt and Catch Fire and directed an episode of HBO's adaptation of The Outsider, which premiered on the network earlier this year. The reboot, like The Invisible Man, will be a Blumhouse production, and will be written by Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (The Invitation). The diversity of Kusama's work should be an asset to Dracula.
The idea of another Dracula adaptation isn't the most exciting prospect, but after the quality and success of Blumhouse's The Invisible Man, the idea has become considerably more appealing. The fact Kusama will be taking the reigns of the reboot is highly encouraging, especially since her work on Jennifer's Body and The Invitation showcased her skills within the horror genre. It's also refreshing to hear she'll be approaching the story differently, giving the Dracula character more mystique than audiences are used to. It'll be fascinating to see what the director and her creative team do with the material when Dracula finally hits theaters.
Source: The Kingcast (via Bloody Disgusting)