Movies
Summit Entertainment Resurrects Dracula in ‘Vlad’
Vampires are hot and Summit Entertainment knows it. But just because you stick a vamp and fang-banger in a movie doesn’t mean it’s going to be an immediate success, Twilight has a built in cult following. So I guess the question begs, is Vlad the Impaler, better know as Dracula, just as popular? Summit hopes to sink their teeth into two big franchise names now that they’ve acquired Vlad, which is to be produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B. Read on for the skinny.
After exploring the romantic angst of vampires in “Twilight,” Summit is developing an action-oriented take on the most famous of the fanged: Dracula.
This one already comes with its own heartthrob in the form of Brad Pitt.
The company has picked up “Vlad,” a script by actor Charlie Hunnam, and is in negotiations with music video and photographer Anthony Mandler to direct the project. Pitt is producing with Dede Gardner via the duo’s Plan B Entertainment production shingle.
“Vlad” centers on Dracula as a young prince; he is known to history as Vlad the Impaler, the man behind the Dracula myth.
Summit picked up “Vlad” awhile ago, developing it quietly, but when execs saw Mandler’s reel, the project got a shot in the arm.
Mandler is a music-video director who has worked with Rhianna (helming 10 of her videos), the Killers and Eminem. Execs were wowed by the reel he prepared, which drew comparisons to Zack Snyder and his work on “300”; Summit tried to land the latter project before it ultimately was made at Warner Bros.
With “Vlad,” Summit hopes to make a visually edgy and radical period movie that also will break a new talent.
Steve Guttenberg will open up a Dybbuk box in the upcoming movie The Dybbuk, with Beth Grant (No Country For Old Men) and Craig Bierko (Cinderella Man) also starring.
Deadline reports, “The contemporary adaptation of S. Ansky’s play comes from writer-director Lee Amir-Cohen and writer-producer Ashley Bua. Filming has recently wrapped in LA.”
Steven Guttenberg plays Rabbi Azrael in the upcoming Jewish folklore-based horror movie. The character is described as “a spiritual leader and mystic, forced to perform a dangerous exorcism when the spirit of a dead man possesses a young woman in his congregation.”
“Tony-nominee Craig Bierko plays Sender, the young woman’s father, while Beth Grant plays Frayda, her grandmother,” Deadline notes in their exclusive report this morning.
Lee Amir-Cohen makes his feature directorial debut with The Dybbuk.