A new Dracula movie is in the works at Universal and Blumhouse. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the recent success of The Invisible Man is the reason Universal is moving forward with more monster movies. Blumhouse reportedly made the movie for around $7 million. And it has taken in $100 million worldwide so far. It also doesn’t hurt that the film has received pretty stellar reviews.
This new take on Count Dracula will come from director Karyn Kusama. Kusama has worked in horror before, having directed 2009’s Jennifer’s Body. More recently, she directed the 2018 crime drama Destroyer as well as the pilot episode for HBO’s Stephen King adaptation The Outsider. Blumhouse is returning to produce with Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay writing the script. Manfredi and Hay have worked with Kusama several times, including on Destroyer and 2015’s The Invitation.
Similar to The Invisible Man, this new Dracula will be set in modern-day. However, also like The Invisible Man, it won’t be connected to a larger universe. Instead, it will be a stand-alone story. This aspect, as well as more middle-sized budgets, will be a staple of their “Monsterverse” moving forward. Universal still has several projects in development with various filmmakers. But they seem to have learned their lesson with 2017’s The Mummy and their failed Dark Universe. This plan tried to ride the hype of Marvel’s shared universe. But it failed because it put star power before creating interesting stories. Prior to that, they tried to launch a shared universe with 2014’s Dracula Untold.
Universal may try to tie the movies together in the future. But as of right now, they’re focusing on filmmakers with specific visions and stronger, isolated stories. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for Comscore, had this to say about Universal’s redirection:
It shows that by being very agile, they were able to pivot and try a new direction. Had Invisible Man not worked, that would have been a cause for concern. But this sets them up very nicely.”
The Invisible Man is set to become Universal’s most successful monster movie in a long time. With this new strategy, Dracula will hopefully follow suit.