Dracula Year Zero – Sam Worthington set to star

With The Wolfman set to hit theatres soon it seems that Universal are lining up an entire new array of creature features starring their back catalogue of ghouls and monsters. Next in line is neck-biter and virgin-fancier Dracula.

The always excellent Latino Review is reporting that Avatar and Terminator: Salvation star Sam Worthington is set to don the cape for Universal’s Dracula Year Zero.

The movie, which will be directed by Knowing and I, Robot helmer Alex Proyas, is an origin tale focusing on Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian king who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s novel. The script from Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless will show how Vlad became Dracula and the choices which led him to become the iconic, yet tragic, figure.

As much as I want this to be a success it has to overcome some serious hurdles first. The title is off-putting, all recent Dracula movies have been bad (Dracula 2000, Blade III, etc.),  Worthington does not really fit the legendary image, the producer is responsible for Ghost Rider, and the Proyas’ last movie, Knowing, was a muddled mess. The common dominator in the last two however was Nicholas Cage so as long as he’s not around we should be fine.