Universal Revives Dracula Year Zero

Hot on the heels of Warner Bros. moving ahead with Harker, we have news that Universal has revived the previously canceled Dracula: Year Zero with a new director. The film was originally set up with Alex Proyas directing and Sam Worthington starring, but ran into budget issues.

Universal Pictures is in talks with director Gary Shore to join the project. According to Deadline, a new draft of the screenplay has been written by Matt Sazama and Burk. Presumably, the new version addresses budget issues by reworking some of the originally planned large battle scenes.

Dracula: Year Zero will provide a backstory to the Dracula legend, by mixing the fictional character with the real history of Vlad the Impaler. Here's some basic plot information from an earlier interview with producer Mike De Luca regarding the original project:

"No, these writers came up with the ingenious-what I think is ingenious-approach combining historical Dracula with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So it chronicles the efforts of a young prince, Vlad of Transylvania trying to keep the Ottoman empire and the Turk’s of the time from using his small country as a stepping stone to invade Europe....

...As written it’s literally on the scale of Braveheart with Dracula, so it’s a lot of…it’s armies. It’s an invading Turkish army. It’s a lot of supernatural action. It’s wonderful. Like it’s an epic love story."