Posted in: Casting, Movies | Tagged: nicholas hoult, nicolas cage, renfield, robert kirkman, Universal Monsters

Nicolas Cage Will Play Dracula In Universal Monsters Film Renfield

Nicolas Cage has been tapped to play Dracula in Universal's upcoming Universal Monsters film Renfield. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news. Robert Kirkman and his company Skybound Productions will help produce the movie based on a pitch made by Kirkman. Chris McKay will helm the project, Rick and Morty writer Ryan Ridley will spin the tale of Renfield, and it will be produced by Skybound Entertainment's Robert Kirkman, David Alpert, Bryan Furst, and Sean Furst. Nicholas Hoult will star in the film as Renfield. The character was a worshipper of Dracula in the original novel, who liked to drink blood. There is no word on what the pitch is for this one, but in a previous interview with Kevin Smith on his podcast, Kirkman claimed this would be an "extremely violent comedy."

Nicolas Cage & Nicholas Hoult? Sign Me Up!

I love this casting so much. This will be Nicolas Cage's first major studio film since he rode the hellcycle in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance in 2011, and what a comeback this will be, playing Dracula. All of a sudden, we have ourselves a little mini-Universal Monsters universe of sorts forming. Dracula will also get a more serious film from Karyn Kusama, Ryan Gosling is signed on to play The Wolf Man, and two comedy powerhouses in Elizabeth Banks and Paul Feig also have movies set in this world as well, the former doing The Invisible Woman and the latter doing Dark Army, a comedy that features some Universal Monsters. It sounds like this Robert Kirkman film will be more in that vein.

Bring it all on, I say. As a huge fan my entire life of the Universal Monsters, I have been waiting a long time for these characters to get their due again. Kirkman is riding high after the extremely successful debut of the Invincible series on Amazon, and it is cool to see him trying to get this film to production. With Nicolas Cage on board, this one just got thrown onto the highway to production.

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