Movies
[TV] NBC’s “Dracula” Gains “Game of Thrones” Star
NBC’s “Dracula” drama series is starting to take shape, adding two key players to its cast.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that “Merlin’s” Katie McGrath and “Game of Thrones'” Nonso Anozie, pictured, have joined the 10-episode drama as series regulars.
The series, which bypassed the traditional pilot stage, takes place in the 1890s and finds Dracula (“The Tudors'” Jonathan Rhys Meyers) living a double life in London as an American businessman interested in bringing modern science to Victorian society. But his true plan — to exact revenge on those who burdened him centuries ago — is derailed when he falls in love with Mina (Arrow’s Jessica DeGouw), who seems to be a reincarnation of his dead wife.
McGrath will play Lucy Westenra, Aristocratic London’s sexy, social butterfly with a penchant for gossip, flirting and all things glamorous. She’s Mina’s best friend, who eventually becomes tied up in a web of lies, lust and temptation that challenges their relationship. Anozie will play R.M. Renfield, Alan Grayson’s (aka Dracula) loyal confidante, who’s the keeper of Dracula’s secrets and the stabilizing force that allows his two personas to co-exist.
“Dracula,” a co-production from British Sky Broadcasting, Carnival Films & Television, Flame Ventures and NBCUniversal, hails from Tony Krantz (“24,” “Sports Night”) and former HBO Films president Colin Callender and writer-creator Cole Haddon (who will co-exec produce).
NBC is eyeing Dracula for fall 2013.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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