DraculaYearZero Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There is no denying that 'origin tales' are all the rage, and it's not just for superheroes anymore. In an interview with MTV Movie Blog, director Alex Proyas gave a few updates about what he has planned for Dracula Year Zero, and the word of the day is 'realism'. Proyas told MTV, the film will be, "sort of the origin tale that mixes [the historical] Prince Vlad of Transylvania with sort of [fictionalized] Bram Stoker [take]" -- I guess if it helps, just think of it as 'Portrait of a Bloodsucker as a Young Man'

Proyas (like so many before him) is planning to mess with the mythology of the big, bad, Transylvanian. But, don't worry, there are still plenty of fangs to go around, Proyas tells MTV, "Oh, you've got to have teeth, I mean, the teeth are really important. I think Frank Langella in the 'Dracula' movie that was made in the 70s, I think he didn't want to have teeth in the movie. But, no, I like the teeth. I want to see girls with a lot of teeth." -- and maybe most importantly to fans, "...lots and lots of blood!"

Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless were hired to write the script for Universal, who are probably expecting this project to dovetail nicely with their other classic 'monster' flicks (The Wolfman and The Mummy). But is a realistic Dracula really the way to go? If you do a little digging on the life of Vlad the Impaler, it's not exactly the romantic tale that Coppola provided us with back in 1992. So keep your fingers crossed that Sazama and Sharpless have a copy of The Legend of Dracula lying around, and hopefully they have something like this in mind for Year Zero.

Dracula Year Zero is expected to arrive in theaters in 2009.

Usually when a harebrained idea like remaking Flash Gordon starts to make the rounds, you can usually count on it being at least a few years down the line -- but I guess today I'm just not that lucky. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have now signed to pen the update of the classic sci-fi tale with Sahara director Breck Eisner at the helm. Eisner signed to direct last May, and with the addition of the screenwriting duo, it could mean the project just entered the fast track. Sazama and Sharpless have had a busy 2008, and were already hard at work on scripting duties for Alex Proya's Dracula Year Zero and Zack Snyder's Cobalt 60 when the Flash deal finalized.

For those of you out there not familiar with the Depression-era hero, Flash Gordon centered on a dashing polo player who is abducted and taken to the faraway planet Mongo. Along with his gal-pal *Gail and scientist Hans Zarkov, Flash lands in the middle of a battle with the dreaded Ming the Merciless (possibly one of the best villain names around). Originally, Universal was holding the rights to the title, but when the project fell through, the rights reverted to King Features Syndicate and eventually found a home at Sony.

This latest incarnation of the adventurer/polo player will mark the third time the classic comic strip has had a home on the big screen (including the original serial). Now that Hollywood is mining the comic book store at a furious pace, the third time could be a charm for Flash.

But it's going to be pretty hard to top Dino DeLaurentiis' psychedelic trip of a film back in 1980 -- don't ya think?

*Correction: Apologies to all the Flash fans out there; Flash's better half was Dale Arden.

It has been exactly one year since we first heard about Dracula Year Zero, a sort of prequel to Bram Stoker's novel and all of the many movie based on it. But unlike most prequels -- which I hate -- this one is more like a historical biopic about real life Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for Stoker's book. Dracula Year Zero will also be doing the annoying prequel thing by portraying an iconic villain's roots, attempting to show him as a misunderstood and flawed hero. But I don't think we'll be seeing an ending where Vlad emerges out of a coffin wearing a cape and flashing his vampire teeth, in that sort of backwards set-up fashion. Of course, this is a Universal movie, so the studio may want to remind us that they are the home of the most famous Dracula image.

Dracula Year Zero now has a director attached: Alex Proyas, the uneven helmer of The Crow, Dark City and I, Robot. Proyas has also reportedly been in talks for the solo Silver Surfer movie, but with the current vampire/Dracula craze, Universal is likely looking to fast track its own project, possibly to beat The Historian especially to theaters. So, I doubt he'll be tackling that Fantastic Four 2 spinoff. Dracula Year Zero was penned by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who say the film deals with a young Vlad at the height of his power. Proyas explained that he became interested because the script contains a sympathy for the character, who apparently just had to sell his soul to the devil in order to save his kingdom. But will we get to see a lot of heads on stakes? Hopefully we'll still get to see how terrible Vlad III was (he didn't get the name 'the Impaler' for nothing), because mindless violence is always entertaining. The more important question is how much vampire mythology will there be? Oh, and how redundant will the film be when we already have a suitable origin in the short prologue of Coppola's Dracula?