Blumhouse continues to cash in on the huge success of The Invisible Man. It was already reported earlier this week that James Wan is developing an original monster movie for the studio – which is in addition to Elizabeth Banks‘ The Invisible Woman and Dexter Fletcher‘s Renfield – and now the studio has commissioned another project based on another classic monster.
A new adaptation of Dracula is in the works, and the studio has hired Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, Destroyer) to direct from a script written by her frequent collaborators Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi.
The deal isn’t yet official at Universal, but Blumhouse has a first-look deal with the studio, and it seems very unlikely they’d led it go anywhere else.
The film is expected to update the classic Dracula story for contemporary times. Kusama is a great choice, having already dabbled in a number of dark genres, and also having recently directed an episode of The Outsider, which coincidentally shares several story elements with Dracula.
Thanks to the massive success of Leigh Whannell‘s The Invisible Man – which has grossed almost $100 million on just a $7 million budget – one expects Blumhouse to give Kusama free reign to tell the updated story however she wants. It will be fascinating to see what she, Hay and Manfredi come up with.
It’s strange to think that there’s an alternate universe where 2017’s Tom Cruise-led The Mummy performed well at the box office, kicking off Universal’s planned Dark Universe with a bang, and we never got these smaller budget, interesting projects, and instead were treated to some lazy, corporately-mandated MCU ripoff. Luckily, at least in terms of Blumhouse’s monster movies, we live in this reality.
#Peace.Love.Dracula
