Today, Tuesday is literally D Day- Dracula Day.
This is the day that Universal decides what it is going to make for summer 2011. You see, Universal has been stagnant since they got sold to that Cable company Comcast. They haven't been allowed to go to the toilet without a permission slip. And now they realize they need to make 8 big films for 2011. You see it takes at least a year to make a moving picture- and they don't have enough for next year.
So there are 14 possible films with 8 needed. And they need to figure out what the freak they are doing quickly.
Each of the possible 14 are ready to go with scripts and directors. Some of them you know and some of them you don't.
But the craziest one is called DRACULA: YEAR ZERO. Yes I know, un titulo de mierda. This is a period retelling of Dracula. Like back in Transylvania and sh*t. Vampires and Vlad the impaler. You know, Van Helsing without that dial a hack Sommers. Because Dracula worked out so well in Blade: Trinity. And I think there was a Dracula 2000... but I don't know who saw it.
Check it though, you know who is supposed to play Dracula? Sam Worthington! That's right, the newly minted "movie star" who everybody paid to see in Avatar. Except they didn't pay to see him now did they?
The movie is budgeted at over $100m. That seems like a lot of cashola for Dracula. But then they spent $165m on the new WOLFMAN wherein fellow Latino Benicio is looking pretty miserable. They are obsessed with the old Universal monsters, even though they are in the public domain. Oh, and nobody cares.
Film is being produced by the guy who gave us the less than brilliant Ghost Rider and directed by the guy who made Will Smith suck in I ,Robot. Don't worry, he blames the head of the studio, for everything, just like Harry Knowles.
Hello, Comcast- maybe you can stop the deal for NBC/Universal. Dracula is not a teenager and he ain't in high school. He is an OLD school vampire. If the new regime is going to spend $100 million plus of your cable revenues on Dracula starring the live action guy from Avatar (or, alternately, the star of the suckiest Terminator) you should cancel the deal.
Now if they were doing Duckula, you would have had me from hello.
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You know, I seem to recall they tried this with Colin Farrell, when he was first taking off (which is to say: deciding to put him in EVERYTHING), and as I further recall, I don't know if that really worked out quite so well, for him... I like Sam Worthington as an action star (and certainly casting directors are leaning more towards the Aussie men for male leads at any rate, as they're finding--surprise! No kidding--American male actors too effeminate...)--but really now, to put the man in Dracula? THE Dracula? Period piece and everything? Not seeing that one working on any level, but then, major studios were never known to be geniuses when it comes to looking ahead...