Blumhouse Taps Karyn Kusama to Direct Dracula!

Blumhouse Taps Karyn Kusama for Dracula

According to The Hollywood Reporter, after scoring big with The Invisible Man, Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions is sinking its teeth into another classic movie icon — none other than the big guy himself, Dracula. The production company has tapped Karyn Kusama (Destroyer) to direct the film, which will -like Invisible Man– be a moderately budgeted picture.

Per the report, Blumhouse hopes to put a modern spin on the legendary Count with the film taking place in contemporary times. Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, who worked with Kusama on Destroyer and The Invitation, are currently working on the script.

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Kusama is familiar with the horror genre, having directed the comedy thriller Jennifer’s Body from a script by Diablo Cody. She also directed episodes of HBO’s The Outsider, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name.

Universal Pictures attempted to create its own shared universe with its legacy monsters; an ambitious project that would have featured the likes of Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem. Then The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, crashed and burned with a middling $409 million worldwide gross and subsequently derailed Universal’s Dark Universe.

As such, the studio saw fit to abandon the shared universe approach and instead focus on character driven films guided by strong filmmakers and good stories.

Recently it was announced that James Wan was setting up another yet-to-be-revealed legacy monster project, while the studio (per THR) continues to work with the likes of John Krasinski, Paul Feig and Elizabeth Banks to find more ways to tackle its classic library. None of these projects is ready to go behind the camera, but it is exciting to hear this newfound direction.

Dracula has been adapted numerous times on every platform imaginable. Most recently, the bloodsucker found his way onto Netflix via Dracula, starring Claes Bang. That series, from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, also dealt with Dracula in the modern world; and featured a number of unique twists on the classic tale. Definitely worth checking out.

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