they should use this as a guide.
http://www.vampress.net/library/browselibrary.php?id=59
Commments? Critiques? Re-castings?
Christ almighty, I hate fanfic.
Now, I thought about this while I was reading Anno Dracula, and I’m just not sure how well a film could work. At least, a general audience would only “get” a fraction of the references; I think many people would know nothing about either the historical figures (except for Queen Victoria) nor the many fictional characters.
But never mind that; let’s assume the movie was being made just for people who already read and enjoyed the book, and that we get to determine casting. I’d want to use British actors as much as possible. There’s got to be a place for Gary Oldman, Ben Cross and Ian Holmes in this. Have to think about this for awhile (and look at the book; haven’t read it in years).
Gary Oldman would be a fool to get involved with another Dracula project after the beating his last one took.
Ian Holm might be good as Mycroft; other than that I’m not envisioning a part for him.
Ben Cross might be passable as Charles. I always thought Rupert Everett would be ideal for the part.
Was Anno Dracula the one set in WWI where ol’ Vlad was keeping Queen Victoria as his nekkid minion and had turned the entire British upper-class into vampires? I remember reading the novel I described but can’t remember the title for sure…
Her Majesty wasn’t naked, and it wasn’t quite the entire upper class, but yes, that’s the one. Actually that’s the three (or it might be four by now).
Oh, and Anno Dracula was set pre-WW1, within the first few years after the events of Stoker’s novel. The first sequel, The Bloody Red Baron was the one set during The Great War.
I was apparently conflating the first two books into one. I remember enjoying both of them, though it was years ago and I don’t really remember much of the plots clearly.
The third book in the series was called Dracula:1959. It was much the weakest of the 3 books. It did feature a song called the Dracula Cha Cha Cha, which Newman wrote was a real song from our 1959. He’d said he conceived as a trilogy, so I doubt that there’ll ever be another book. If Anno Dracula were to become a movie smash, he’d probably change his mind (presuming he’s still alive and writing. There hasn’t been a new book from him in a long time).
The third one was also titled Dracula-cha-cha-cha and Judgement of Tears: Anno Dracula 1959 in different markets. I have the JoT one. Actually, I preferred it to TBRB.
Book four is being developed right now out of a variety of short stories & novellas Kim Newman has written. There is a Iorga/Count Yorga story set as a early 70’s California hippie-cult tale; Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula- in which Stoker’s alt-history novel is filmed in the late '70’s a la Apocalypse Now (Sheen =Harker; Brando=Dracula; Hopper=Renfield; Duvall=Van Helsing, I so want to see that movie); a “Buffy”/Barbie-Slayer parody; The Other Side of Midnight about Orson Welles attempt to film Stoker’s novel; and Johnny Alucard, about the NYC disco-druggie scene where the new drug of choise is drac, powdered vamp-blood essence. Johnny Alucard is to be the title for Book IV. Several of these stories are online (the Yorga, Coppola & Alucard ones, I don’t think the Barbie & Welles ones are).
There’s also a short story called Who Dares, Wins about a group of vampires seizing a London embassy and Kate Reed being part of the effort to free the hostages.
Thanks Little Nemo. I followed the link and greatly enjoyed the story. I’ll google the others later. I’d not have known about these without your post.
Btw, the Transylvania resistance leader in Who Dares, Wins - Baron Meister, is the decadent young vampire in the Hammer production Brides of Dracula.
Kim Newman’s Wikipedia article has links to several of his online stories.
Personally, I thought Anno Dracula’s plot meandered just a bit too much to translate to a movie…but I suppose a good scriptwriter could probably tighten up the story with a minimum of fuss. (Or your could just do it as an HBO miniseries.)
I’m sure I’ll catch flak for this, but I can see Hugh Jackman as Beauregard and Miranda Otto as Genevieve. (With, perhaps, a cameo appearance by John Hurt as a certain doorman.)
The story I called “Johnny Alucard” is actually listed as “Andy Warhol’s Dracula”- and alas, the site which hosted it- Event Horizon, is no longer up & the files are not to be found.