Nicolas Cage has been cast as Dracula in a new Universal Monsters movie titled Renfield, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Renfield stars Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road, X-Men: Dark Phoenix) as the titular acolyte and henchman from the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Renfield was a patient at an asylum who was obsessed with the idea of drinking blood for immortality. Naturally, he finds himself under Dracula's wing and is fed animals and the prospect of a never-ending life in exchange for his loyalty and adulation.
THR's report doesn't provide a lot of specifics on how the relationship between Cage's Dracula and Hoult's Renfield will play out in the upcoming movie, but the project is being described as "comedic in tone."
Renfield is being directed by Chris McKay, whose body of work includes Amazon's The Tomorrow War and The Lego Batman Movie. Ryan Ridley, who has writing and voice acting credits on Rick and Morty, is penning a script based on an original story outline by Robert Kirkman, co-creator of The Walking Dead comics.
In a lot of ways, this feels like the culmination of Cage's many crazy roles, from the filicidal father in Mom and Dad, to, rather aptly, the guy who thinks he's turning into a vampire in the 1989 comedy-horror Vampire's Kiss. A few years back, we made a list of the wackiest Nic Cage moments, and one can only hope Renfield will have a scene or two that makes the cut on a revival of that piece.
