Universal’s Renfield movie, which will revolve around Count Dracula’s henchman from Bram Stoker‘s original novel, has found its Dracula. Nicolas Cage has signed on to play the famous vampire in a supporting role to Nicolas Hoult‘s titular Renfield.
Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The LEGO Batman Movie) is directing, with Ryan Ridley (Rick And Morty) penning the script.
The Renfield character originated in Bram Stoker‘s 1897 novel Dracula as a patient in an asylum obsessed with drinking blood and deluded into thinking he will find immortality. He bows at the feet of Dracula who feeds him insects and rats and dangles everlasting life in front of him.
It’s currently unclear how Renfield will tackle the dynamic between the two as plot details are being kept under wraps, but the project is being described as a modern-day adventure story that is comedic in tone.
That combination of comedy, vampires, and Cage will likely have fans thinking of Vampire’s Kiss, Cage’s 1989 comedy that spawned a million memes and remains a cult hit to this day thanks to the actor’s truly bizarre performance. If we get anything close to that amount of undiluted Cage this time around, Renfield will be an extremely memorable experience.
Cage has had a bit of a comeback into the mainstream this year thanks to an acclaimed role in Pig while also starring in Prisoners Of The Ghostland and Willy’s Wonderland.
He’s got meta comedy The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent arriving in April, and he’s also got westerns The Old Way and Butcher’s Crossing in production.
The Renfield movie is a part of Universal’s retooled Dark Universe, which began with Leigh Whannell‘s The Invisible Man in early 2020. Other projects include Karyn Kusama‘s contemporary-set Dracula film, while Ryan Gosling is starring in Derek Cianfrance‘s take on Wolfman.
It sounds like Renfield will be more a little lighter in tone than its sister projects. After a year in which Cage gave wildly different performances in three films, it will be fascinating to see what his take on Dracula is.
#Peace.Love.Renfield
