Van Helsing


No official plot yet.

How excited are you to see this movie?: 
Average: 3.3 (1131 votes)


CURRENT STATUS: 
In Development

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PROJECT DETAILS:

This project is back in active development with the news that Universal has tapped Julius Avery (Overlord) to co-write and direct. James Wan will co-produce via his Atomic Monster banner. It's also said that with the success of the recent R-rated Invisible Man, the studio is open to the possibility of this also being rated R. Either way, at the moment it's unclear what the story will be. (12/1/20)

Dan Mazeau (Wrath of the Titans) wrote an earlier draft.

Co-writer Eric Heisserer has a recent interview where he spoke a bit about his take on the script and the Van Helsing character, saying: "Well I guess the biggest thing that’s already been said is it’s contemporary, it’s a modern-day reimagining… I can talk about my emotional state of what I’ve been passionate about or sometimes frustrated by are the number of films where we find an extraordinary character with superhuman abilities that becomes a hero to solve a problem that a normal person cannot solve.And I was eager to try and buck that trend and showcase someone who had no extraordinary powers, just resourcefulness and will and kind of a stubbornness who’s able to tackle some of these bigger problems. Because I don’t like the idea that we’re infusing our public and our pop culture with the idea that only super people can solve the world’s problems. I like the idea of the everyday hero stepping up to the plate and getting things fixed." When asked if the film will offer much horror, he said the following: "I don’t know what it’s going to look like at the end of the process, so I’m gonna withhold on commenting on really where it lands. I can say that my intent stepping in was to make it as scary as possible, partly because I know how to do that, and also because when you’re the only human surrounded by a bunch of supernatural creatures, that’s gotta be absolutely unnerving." (2/10/17)

Co-writer Jon Spaihts spoke a bit about the project and what fans can expect from the Van Helsing character, saying: "It’s a new creation, so it doesn’t owe much of a debt to prior films, but it is still a very romantic departure from the character as incepted in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, where it was a Dutch doctor who figures out a very surprising answer to an odd medical question. This is a monster hunter with encyclopedic knowledge, but it’s set in the present day and it’s just filled with good stuff I’m not allowed to talk about. But I’m very excited about this new incarnation of Van Helsing, and I hope that as the Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe begins to take flight, we’ll see him cropping up in other stories, as well." (11/28/16)

Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange, The Mummy) and Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Final Destination 5, The Thing prequel) are the latest writers attached to the project. (11/12/15)

Co-writer Alex Kurtzman revealed in an interview how he'd like to approach the remake saying: "Well, I don’t want to give away too much, because we are actually at the very beginning of talking about what to do with it. But I do feel like the Van Helsing that Anthony Hopkins plays in [Bram Stoker’s] Dracula is sort of the parody version of it, and the Van Helsing that Hugh Jackman played was obviously in a different place as well. I think that these kinds of movies have evolved a lot since then. You know, The Dark Knight was a major, major corner-turning moment in the way that genre and superhero stories could be told. Really grounded in reality. Really grounded in really cool things. That’s what I’d like to do without sacrificing the fantasy element. We aspired to do that as well on Trek, you know, keep it “real.” That’s such a different franchise than Batman, but that’s really what we wanted to do. And we’d love to do that with Van Helsing."

It's said that at one point Tom Cruise was attached to star.

This film was previously part of Universal's plan to reboot and unify their slate of classic monster movies (nicknamed the Dark Universe), with the first being a reboot of The Mummy. That idea was scrapped after The Mummy failed to bring in the appropriate numbers at the box office. Now it seems the studio is aiming for a smaller budgeted project, which has already proven successful with the latest Invisible Man.

This is a "re-imagining" of Universal's Van Helsing. The previous film was the 2004 big-budgeted entry from writer/director Stephen Sommers that starred Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing.

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