Movies
James Wan Reveals Nicolas Cage Almost Played Dracula in Defunct ‘Castlevania’ Adaptation
Actor Nicolas Cage finally gave his spin on the world’s most iconic vampire, Dracula, in this year’s Renfield. Director James Wan (Insidious, Saw, The Conjuring) recently revealed on Instagram that Cage nearly played the bloodsucking Count just over a decade ago.
In 2009, Wan revealed that he was in the early process of adapting Castlevania for the big screen. Wan told Bloody Disgusting out of SDCC that “I’m very fresh on this project, so it’s early stages and I’m still trying to work things out, but the producers love my vision for it. I’ll be working on the script with a writer to give it a new spin, different to the previous versions. This will have my stamp on it which Konami is very excited about.”
While those plans didn’t pan out, it turns out that Wan always knew Cage had an excellent Dracula performance in him. The filmmaker praised Renfield on social media and revealed that he was in talks with the actor about portraying the vampire for the live-action adaptation.
So, it seems Dracula was a role Cage was destined to play.
In Renfield, available at home now, “Nicholas Hoult stars as Renfield, the tortured aide to history’s most narcissistic boss, Dracula (Oscar® winner Nicolas Cage). Renfield is forced to procure his master’s prey and do his every bidding, no matter how debased. But now, after centuries of servitude, Renfield is ready to see if there’s a life outside the shadow of The Prince of Darkness. If only he can figure out how to end his codependency.”
For his turn as Dracula, Cage previously told us that he drew from a surprising source of inspiration. “Thankfully, my director liked the idea of using August Coppola as a model for the character, who was this imposing aura when he walked in a room and spoke in a Mid-Atlantic accent and knew he was smarter than everybody else,” Cage said.
Konami’s popular Castlevania video game series began in 1986 and followed the vampire-hunting Belmont clan as they fought through Dracula’s monster-filled castle.
While the live-action adaptation is lost in purgatory, Castlevania at least continues to thrive in animated form.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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