Hello, vampires!

I thought I had outgrown my vamp addiction (aside from Buffy). I don't read Anne Rice anymore, and I haven't watched a new vamp movie in a while. But then I started watching Moonlight. Yup, still hooked. And now there's a new flick on the horizon: Variety reports that Celluloid Dreams has gone into pre-production on Hello Darkness, a "genre-bending vampire film."

This also marks the second vampire movie this week for the UK (remember Lesbian Vampire Killers?). But it won't be all darkness. Not much is being said about the plot, other than it's a "humor-laced romancer" where a regular guy becomes a vampire and then "falls for a posh student." So that's two UK vamp comedies, the direct-to-DVD Lost Boys sequel, plus some Twilight. Now if only we could get some adult vampire darkness, we'll be set! Oh wait -- we're kind of getting that with Celluloid Dreams' Julie Delpy thriller, The Countess.

Meanwhile, the company is also looking into prophets and immigrants. They've picked up a crime drama called A Prophet, where a young Arab becomes a mafia kingpin while prospering in a French prison. They've also nabbed Rabia, a romantic thriller about "two luckless immigrant workers in Spain."

Just to lighten things up after word that Vincent Perez's life is going to hit the big screen, Variety reports that Israeli director Eytan Fox is teaming up with X Filme International for a film based on Gad Beck. Fox is currently writing the mostly-English script with partner and collaborator Gal Uchovsky, to film on location in Germany. While the subject matter is still heavy, this time around the hero has a better fate.

As a gay Jew, Beck had fled from the Nazis, joined the Jewish resistance, and saved dozens of Jewish people from being murdered. According to Uchovsky, "It's a complicated story because Gad's mother was originally a German Christian who converted to Judaism, so he had quite a large German family in Berlin. The Nazis would call someone like Gad a mischling, or half-Jew, so the film will also look at those relations." With a solid $6-$10 milliion price tag, they're hoping to land an American actor as Gad, so this could be a fairly high-profile project. Personally, looking at the pic of Gad to the right, I'm thinking Alan Cumming.

Not long ago, I had a chance to sit down with Julie Delpy in Manhattan to talk about 2 Days in Paris, her upcoming directorial effort that's bowing on August 10th. (You can check out Erik's glowing Berlinale review here.) As she waited on some black tea to arrive, we quickly got into talking about the film, which is about a native Parisian played by Delpy who brings her American boyfriend home to Paris for a quick visit; the two of them try to survive what the resulting cultural shockwaves do to their relationship. We also got into the subject of her next directorial project -- a biopic of the infamous 16th century 'Blood Countess' Elizabeth Bathory -- and discussed the unconventional arc of her career in general. Delpy has been quite vocal about having grand ambitions as a director -- she dreams of helming major action/sci-fi blockbusters -- but told me with characteristic bluntness that her filmmaking goals wouldn't force her to put acting on the backburner. "I don't have to choose, so I'm not going to," she said, pointedly. Here's the interview.

RS: Have you seen Zoe Cassavetes' Broken English yet?

JD: I didn't see it yet. I want to, though.

RS: The reason I bring it up is because [spoiler warning] they came pretty close to ripping off the ending of Before Sunset.

JD: They did?

RS: Yeah. Girl meets French guy in New York, she chases him to Paris, can't find him, finds him at the very end, they're deciding if they will stay together, and he says something along the lines of 'you're gonna miss that plane,' and that's the end.

JD: No..

RS: Yes. Lots of critics noticed it at the time, not just me.

JD: Really?

RS: Yeah. It was like, why would she do that?

JD: Why would she do that? That's weird. Was it conscious?

RS: I don't know. I thought maybe you two were friends, and it was an homage. Who knows?

JD: Maybe it's an homage.

Yes, I like seeing them on screen together as much as you do, so don't send me hate mail over this one, but it's true. I recently had a chance to sit down with Julie Delpy in Manhattan for a one-on-one interview -- I'll be publishing it soon -- and over the course of our talk, she dropped that bit of unexpected news. Ethan Hawke is no longer expected to appear as Ferenc Nadansky, the husband of Delpy's character, 'Blood Countess' Elizabeth Bathory, in the Delpy-directed film The Countess. "He might do a cameo, but I don't think he will anymore, " Delpy told me with a sad look. "He was going to, and now he's busy with something else. But it was such a small cameo, and it would have jeopardized the dates for other actors, and I felt like it was not right, you know? He agreed to be in it at first, and now he has a play, maybe. But it's okay -- maybe it's not meant to be. I have wonderful people attached, so I'm very happy with that."

Wait, don't jump out of the window yet -- there's a silver lining to this cloud. Delpy seems to be as on board as Hawke is to do another Before Sunrise sequel, although the details have yet to be worked out, of course. "We wanted to do, maybe a third one," she told me. "We might do it. We don't know. We have to come up with the right idea." When I suggested that she wait until they hit 65, 70 before doing part three, she didn't seem to be into that. "Maybe not -- maybe it could be good every ten years, you know, like we did it. Maybe it's good in our early forties." Stay tuned to Cinematical for the full interview, which is coming as soon as I have time to type it out.

When Jessica Barnes first blogged about Julie Delpy's Elizabeth Bathory picture called The Countess, she also mentioned another one in the works -- Bathory, coming from Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko. Now Variety is giving out a little more information about the dueling, bloody biopics. First, Delpy's Countess. The actress/director has been keeping tight-lipped about her production, but it's gearing up for a modest $6.6 million, shooting in parts of Hungary and Slovakia where Bathory ruled. Delpy wrote the script, and is starring with Ethan Hawke and Vincent Gallo. How's that for a trio?

Now, Jakubisko's project has been described as a "feminist" adaptation -- a description which sounds a little silly considering that Delpy is the head of the other one, and he's a man, so it might not be the best distinction. Nevertheless, this project is said to have "a more epic setting," delving into her life from age 10 to age 45, when she died in imprisonment. He has "put his distinctive stamp on the battle sequences and constantly moves the action from manor houses to more than 20 different castles and chateaus, with 120 speaking characters and thousands of extras." If it sounds too epic to be pulled off -- the filming is already complete. While all sounds well and good, I'm not so sure his star can live up to Delpy. Jakubisko's feature stars Anna Friel. I've enjoyed some of her roles, especially her troubled Marina in Me Without You, but I can't help but fear that she'll be a whiney princess, and who wants wailing royalty?

Without going into too many embarrassing details about my misspent youth in eyeliner, let's just say I am pretty familiar with the 'Gothic lifestyle.' As a result, I've spent way too much time watching vampire movies, and now it looks like there's another one to watch. Fangoria is reporting that sources have confirmed that a film based on the life of Elizabeth "Blood Countess" Báthory is finally set for production. The story of the 15th century Hungarian countess who supposedly bathed in the blood of virgins to stay eternally young has been the source of plenty of vampire stories but there has never been much attention paid to the slightly less glamorous -- but no less gruesome historical story. Bathory was believed to have tortured and murdered over 600 young girls over the course of her life and was never brought to trial for any of her crimes.

It was almost two years ago when rumblings first surfaced about a Bathory film to be directed by Julie Delpy, who will also star, but there hasn't much solid detail about the project until now. According to Fangoria, the cast now falling into place would also include Ethan Hawke (I'll avoid the obvious Before Sunrise vampire joke), and Vincent Gallo. Supposedly, the film is set to start shooting this summer in Eastern Europe. If this project moves beyond gossip and into the production stage, it won't be the first Bathory film to hit screens this year. Juraj Jakubisko will be directing a "feminist" telling of the story. If Delpy's project continues inching forward at the same pace its been moving over the last two years, Jakubisko's film might be the only one we get.