by Ben Bussey

Lugosi, Lee, Oldman… and now Worthington?*

According to Latino Review, the new Aussie action man of last year’sTerminator Salvation, this year’s Clash of the Titans, and some film about blue people in a jungle, will next be adding to his roster of iconic characters the old Prince of Darkness himself in Dracula: Year Zero, a revisionist take (again) on the king of the vampires.

To quote the somewhat colourful prose of LR’s source:

“This is a period retelling of Dracula. Like back in Transylvania and sh*t. Vampires and Vlad the impaler. You know, Van Helsing without that dial a hack Sommers. Because Dracula worked out so well in Blade: Trinity. And I think there was a Dracula 2000… but I don’t know who saw it.”

The movie is budgeted at over $100m. That seems like a lot of cashola for Dracula. But then they spent $165m on the new WOLFMAN wherein fellow Latino Benicio is looking pretty miserable. They are obsessed with the old Universal monsters, even though they are in the public domain. Oh, and nobody cares.

Film is being produced by the guy who gave us the less than brilliant Ghost Rider and directed by the guy who made Will Smith suck in I ,Robot.”

Ahem. Well, I will not dispute that Van Helsing, Blade Trinity and Dracula 2000 were uniformly horrendous, and to call Ghost Rider ‘less than brilliant’ is extremely generous. But lest we drown in cynicism, let’s not forget Alex Proyas also gave us The Crow and Dark City, two damn good pieces of 90’s gothic fun that successfully blurred the lines between fantasy, horror and action. If Proyas can get that same tone (i.e., is given the freedom to do so) for a more action oriented period Dracula, I see no reason not to be optimistic.

As for Worthington, I fall back on my typical position on the man to date, which is to say… hmmm. Okay, given that as of today Avatar has officially overtaken Titanic to become THE highest grossing film of all time, I suspect Worthington won’t be short of work for the immediate future, but it’s rarely a good thing for an actor to get this many major roles thrown at him so suddenly. (Colin Farrell, anyone?) And, above and beyond that, there’s a definite doubt as to whether he’s the right guy for Dracula. But if they are taking a genuinely different approach (I gather it’s an origin story of sorts, with a pre-undead warrior count), and need their young Dracula to be brooding, menacing and aggressive, I think Worthington’s already demonstrated he can do that. Whether he can do it without losing all the lines in that irrepressible Australian accent of his is another matter. “I never drink wine… got any tinnies, mate?”

As ever, expect more on this as we get it.

* Not forgetting – let’s see now – Shreck (if he counts), Chaney Jr, Carradine, Forbes-Robertson, Palance, Kier, Jordan, Regehr, Butler, Roxborough, Purcell, Warren, and of course Neilson… feel free to point out any I’ve missed.