In a move that should surprise absolutely no one given that Hollywood’s obsession with rooting out the latest form that vampires can take on screen borders on Van Helsing levels, word has arrived that Orphan director Jaume Collet-Serra has locked in to direct Harker for Warner Bros.
The title might tip you off to the fact that this’ll be a take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula tale, but instead focusing on Jonathan Harker, who in the script will be a Scotland Yard detective hunting down the fanged fiend. And if all goes well, the producers (including executive overseer Leonardo DiCaprio, since his Appian Way company is involved) are crossing their fingers that the character could be come the lynchpin of a new franchise. Looks like we’ll have another round of frenzied casting stories to look forward to as established and up-and-coming actors scramble to land the part.
While Deadline locked in more details about the scope of the story, credit for actually breaking the news goes to the team at Badass Digest. And though at the junket for his latest, identity thriller Unknown, Serra told Empire that he wouldn’t be announcing anything about the movie until he had casting in place, it would seem that he’s now been beaten to the punch. Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy, who already have several genre projects set up at various studios, wrote the Harker script as a spec and are now looking at yet another successful sale.
Question is, do we really need the 500th version of the Dracula story?