See Nicolas Cage As A Sleazy Dracula In Renfield First Look
We have a first look at Nicolas Cage in costume as Dracula, or possibly Nicolas Cage has actually become a vampire. Either way, it's cool.
At some near point in the future, we will need to come up with a term for the current upswing in Nicolas Cage’s career. Will it be the Cageissance? The Nicolodeon? Something better than those two? It can be agreed that Cage is currently experiencing a resurgence of in the quality of films he stars in, which is not coincidentally happening at the same time as he has apparently finally paid off the debts that pushed him into direct-to-DVD limbo for years. One of those upcoming movies is titled Renfield, and it stars Nicolas Cage in the role we have all been wanting him to play for years, whether we knew it or not: Dracula. Photos of Cage in full Dracula drag have begun to emerge, and behold:
It should be no surprise that Nicolas Cage actually looks pretty gosh darn appropriate as Count Dracula. After all, he is known to be a creature of the night, like Dracula. He has lived in a number of castles, like Dracula. He is friends with Dog the Bounty Hunter, just like Dracula. And frankly, there are few people in the world that could pull off a crushed red velvet frock coat like Cage, who has some experience pulling off unusual jackets. He also has an appropriately vampiric pallor that gives him a distinctly Joker-ish look, which makes us think of all the Batman villains he could have and still may play. And of course, he has the requisite long nails and giant Transyvlanian medal that completes any Dracula get-up. It’s all very impressive, which is what we expect from Nicolas Cage.
Renfield will star Nicholas Hoult as the titular servant of Dracula, so it feels likely that we will get to see the star of The Great and Warm Bodies eat some flies at some point. In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, R. M. Renfield is an inmate of a Victorian lunatic asylum in the hypnotical thrall of Dracula, and notable for his belief that consuming the life force of smaller animals like insects will turn him immortal. While the end of the novel sees Renfield being killed by Dracula, it can be assumed this movie will be going a different, possibly lighter route with their relationship. Renfield has been portrayed in film by many different actors, with Klaus Kinski and Tom Waits offering particularly unhinged takes on an already unhinged character.
Renfield is set to be directed by Chris McKay, who previously worked on a number of seasons of Robot Chicken and made his directional debut with the well-received The Lego Batman Movie (taking over for fellow Hollywood Chrisses Lord and Miller). The plot of the film stars Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as Renfield seemingly navigating the modern world, until Renfield falls in love with a parking attendant (Awkwafina). Ben Schwartz is also involved as a gangster named Teddy Lobo, so it is fair to assume this will be a more comedic take on the classic vampire mythos. This is yet another attempt by Universal Pictures to utilize their roster of classic film monsters, after the swift demise of their attempt at a shared “Dark Universe.” With the amount of talent and red velvet involved, we have a good feeling about this one.
