Thursday, July 19, 2012

Dracula series coming to Starz



A mixed blessing about being on the press list for San Diego was all the press releases I got leading up to the show and during it. While it made my inbox unmanageable for a few days, there were some cool things too like an announcement from Starz about the new show they're developing, Vlad Dracula.

J. Michael Straczynski is working on the series with producers Roy Lee (The Ring, The Woman in Black) and Rob Tapert (Xena, Spartacus). According to the press release, "The project is a unique spin on the classic tale, blending the historical facts of the 15th century Prince of Wallachia with the fictional Dracula. Vlad Dracula traces his evolution from a revered ruler to the world's most feared vampire, and his slow downfall as he struggles desperately to hang on to his humanity, his wife and his kingdom."

Anyone else up for that besides me?

2 comments:

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

A blend of the historical Vlad the Impaler with legendary Dracula. Interesting, but I feel like "Haven't we seen that before somewhere? Didn't the Jack Palance and Ford Coopola versions do that?" Maybe their touch on the historical connection is why it sounds familiar.

I'm mildly interested, but not too excited because it feels like if it isn't already tread ground, that it should be. Maybe its because I'm thankful that we're just starting to get over the vampire movie/TV overdose that we've had in the past few years, and want more time to pass before we start up vampires again. Or maybe because I just don't want to see the Count's story told "Smallville" Style (You could call it "Transvlvania" or nickname it "Transville") were the origin story gets stretched out so long of brooding (sexy brooding!) and don't get to see him bite anyone on the neck until the final episode.

Then again I'm probably thinking too "Network TV" while I'm sure this was pitched a "Game of Thrones with Vampires".

We'll see.

Michael May said...

Those are good points. I don't want another Smallville-like wait either and would likely lose patience if that's how they approached it. I'm hoping that he becomes a vampire in at least the first season and spends the rest of the series dealing with it. That I could get into.

Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula was a similar take in 2000 (Peter Weller had a cameo in it), so it's certainly been done before. Part of the draw for me though is Tapert. I haven't seen Spartacus, but I was a big Xena fan.

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