A year has passed since we heard that director Luc Besson was making a “big-budget reimagining” of the Dracula concept that will feature “some epic and potentially spectacular set pieces,” and now that film is ready to start making its way out into the world. Besson’s Dracula has yet to secure distribution in the United States, but SND will be giving it a theatrical release in France on July 30th – and with that date right around the corner, a trailer for the film has dropped online. You can check it out in the embed above.
Also known as Dracula: A Love Tale, the film is, as that title gives away, a love story, following Dracula as he connects with a woman in Belle Epoque Paris, who resembles his beloved wife Elisabeta, who died in mid-15th century Transylvania. Per legend, it was Elisabeta’s suicide that led Romanian ruler Prince Vlad III (the real-life inspiration for Dracula) to forsake God and embrace life as a vampire. The action moves between time and the settings of Dracula’s castle in Romania’s Transylvanian Mountains and Belle Epoque Paris, which substitutes Stoker’s original UK settings of Whitby and London. The Paris-set scenes in the second part of the film unfold in the lead up to July 14, 1989, as the city gears up to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution.
The title character is played by Caleb Landry Jones, who just worked with Besson on his most recent film, Dogman. The idea that Jones would make a great Dracula occurred to Besson while they were on the set of Dogman. Wanting to work with the actor again as quickly as possible, the filmmaker then started assembling his take on Dracula. He told Deadline he’s fascinated with Jones because “He’s crazily talented. It’s something I haven’t seen since Gary Oldman. On a human level, he’s a gem, kind, lovely… there’s no entourage, no agents and assistants in tow.” This is the most inspired he has been by an actor since Jean Reno, who he made six movies with.
Jones is joined in the cast by Zoë Bleu (Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?) as Elisabeta and her 1989 look-alike Mina, Matilda De Angelis (Citadel: Diana) as Mina’s best friend, and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) as a vampire-hunting priest who is on Dracula’s tail.
What did you think of the trailer for Luc Besson’s Dracula? Are you looking forward to this movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
