Alex Proyas Promises Lots of Blood

Posted by dominie in Films, News, Reviews on August 28th, 2008

In July 2007, Variety announced Universal’s new origins tale about Vlad the Impaler titled Dracula: Year Zero with Alex Proyas (Dark City, I, Robot, The Crow) to direct and Michael De Luca producing. The film will be a new take on the legend of Dracula, showing Vlad when he was still vital. Scribes Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless are hoping to downplay the monster depicted in the classic Bram Stoker novel, and instead play on sympathy for Vlade’s character, who was actually considered a hero in Romania when he sold his soul to the Devil to save his kingdom and family. In this story of tragedy and love, can Dracula really be considered the hero?

Production is taking place at Universal Studios, rightfully, as it is the home of the monsters and MTV caught up with Proyas for the details. We now bring you the highlights:

Without revealing too much, Proyas tells MTV that the new take on Dracula: Year Zero is “a sort of the origin tale that mixes [the historical] Prince Vlad of Transylvania with sort of [fictionalized] Bram Stoker [take].”

Regarding vampire mythos, he ensures us there will be stakes, teeth, and blood. “Oh, you’ve got to have teeth… I mean, the teeth are really important. I think Frank Langella in the Dracula movie that was made in the 70s, I think he didn’t want to have teeth in the movie. But, no, I like the teeth. I want to see girls with a lot of teeth.” Regarding garlic, he said “I think the garlic thing is kind of weird,” but would not disclose on any transformations into a bat.