Here’s an interesting bit of movie trivia that James Wan recently shared. It turns out that before Nicolas Cage played Dracula in Renfield, he was set to play the iconic vampire in a scrapped adaptation of the popular video game franchise Castlevania!
Wan was developing an adaptation of Castlevania back in 2009, and he said at the time: “I’m very fresh on this project, so it’s early stages and I’m still trying to work things out, but the producers love my vision for it. I’ll be working on the script with a writer to give it a new spin, different to the previous versions. This will have my stamp on it which Konami is very excited about.”
Obviously, the project didn’t pan out, which is a shame. I think Wan would have made an awesome Castlevania movie, and Cage would’ve been awesome as Dracula in the movie! Hell, he was so much fun to watch as the Prince of Darkness in Renfield! He delivered such an enjoyable performance.
Wan recently praised Renfield on social media, and that’s where he revealed that he was in talks with the actor about portraying the vampire for his live-action adaptation. Cage was just destined to play the character!
Hopefully, Cage gets to continue playing the role as he recently said that he’d like to make his own Dracula movie so that he can better explore the psyche of the vampire. He said: “You know, there are some minor moments here where you get to see some of the pathos in Dracula’s eyes. That made me think that maybe one day I might like to try for a whole movie where you’re really understanding the psyche of the character. I didn’t really have the time to delve into that here.”
Cage previously explained that he accepted the role of Dracula as a challenge to himself and because he is a fan of other interpretations of the character that we’ve seen over the years from the likes of Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Bela Lugosi and Gary Oldman. He said: “I also kind of always knew I had to do it at some point. I went back to Christopher Lee, in terms of his manner of speaking, but that was really only a starting point. I knew Christopher. I did a small scene with him in ‘Season of the Witch,’ and I liked him very much. We had a lot of nice conversations, and he reminded me quite a bit of my father, August. So from then on, my dad sort of became the main inspiration for me.”
Would you have liked to see Cage play Dracula in a Castlevania movie?
