EXCLUSIVE: One of the last big European Film Market pre-sales projects to be revealed is one of the most intriguing as SAG winner Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri) has been set to star with two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) in a big-budget reimagining of the Dracula story from Lucy filmmaker and Taken creator Luc Besson.
Based on Bram Stoker’s iconic novel, sources close to the production confirm to us that the project will be Besson’s next movie and mark his own take on the vampire classic about the dark Prince who is condemned to eternal life.
We hear this has an origin story element to it exploring in a little more depth the gothic romance between Prince Vladimir and his wife whose loss turns him to forsake God and become a vampire. Buyers familiar with Besson’s script tell us there are some epic and potentially spectacular set pieces.
Landry Jones will play Dracula. It’s not clear yet which character Waltz will play, but talks are underway with other buzzy cast to join in the other key roles.
The project is expected to have a big budget for a European movie but is nowhere near Valerian levels. Luc Besson Productions is producing with EuropaCorp co-producing. The aim is to shoot this year.
The project has been bubbling in the market for a little while but is now firming up with Paris-based seller Kinology handling sales and discussing the project with potential distributors.
Landry Jones and Waltz are both Cannes Best Actor winners. The former for Justin Kurzel’s Nitram. The latter for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Landry Jones, also known for playing Banshee in X-Men: First Class and ‘Jeremy’ in Get Out, recently collaborated with Besson on 2023 Venice Film Festival movie DogMan, which was another movie about a tortured outcast, and showcased why he is considered one of the most distinctive young actors around.
DogMan was billed as something of a comeback for visionary filmmaker Besson, a totem of French cinema who made his name with movies such as Big Blue, Leon and The Fifth Element, but whose career in recent years has been dogged by the bruising financial experience of mega-budget Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets and sexual misconduct allegations, including by an actress from that production. Besson steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and last year the filmmaker was cleared of all charges in that case by France’s equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Briarcliff will release DogMan domestically this spring after it was picked up widely by buyers in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Kinology also handled sales on that one.
Besson is also in post-production on intimate drama June And John, an experimental film he shot during Covid lockdown with newcomers Luke Stanton Eddy and Matilda Price.
