Building on the success of Avatar, the seemingly everywhere Sam Worthington has apparently already picked his next role: Dracula. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Worthington is currently in negotiations to star in director Alex Proyas’ vampire epic Dracula Year Zero for Universal and producer Michael De Luca.
The film, written by Matt Sazama and Buck Sharpless, will explore the origins of Dracula and his ties to Vlad the Impaler. It will reportedly portray the titular vampire as both demonic evil and tragic, flawed hero. The film currently has no start date and is still in development.
As a fan of Proyas’ previous work with The Crow and Dark City, I’m hopeful his take on Dracula will be equally as visually compelling and also feature interesting characters and situations. That said, the movie does sound a lot like Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version of Dracula, which featured Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder.
As for Worthington, I’m still not convinced that he’s the “next big thing” even as studios shove him in our faces more and more. I just don’t find him that interesting. No matter what, I guess we’ll find out how he handles Dracula when this film eventually hits theaters.
