Luc Besson is going where many directors have gone before in telling the story of Dracula.

Dracula as a character has been played by more than a dozen actors since the early days of film, and remains popular today: in 2023 The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield, each an adaptation of author Bram Stoker’s work, were released theatrically, and another vampire tale, Nosferatu, is slated for release later this year. 

So while it could be said that Dracula stories, and vampire horror movies, have been done to death, it’s likely that there will always be an interest in the alluring blood-sucker. The abundance of Dracula movies isn’t stopping Besson (Lucy, Dogman), who will be behind the camera for Dracula – A Love Tale.

Christoph Waltz will co-star, and Caleb Landry-Jones, who starred in Dogman for Besson, will play the lead. The story will be a more in-depth telling of the gothic romance between Prince Vladimir and his wife, and how his grief at losing her turns him to forsake God and become a vampire.

Waltz’s role hasn’t been disclosed yet, nor have any other cast members been announced, though the buzz around Hollywood is that there will be some big names in the cast, per Deadline.

Dracula was perhaps most famously played by Bela Lugosi in Universal’s 1931 classic film, and has been played by Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman and Gerard Butler, to name but a few. Comic actors Leslie Nielsen and George Hamilton played the character for laughs, and you could make a case that Nicolas Cage did the same in his turn as Dracula in Renfield.

There have also been several television projects featuring the Prince of Darkness, and Adam Sandler played the voice of Dracula in the animated Hotel Transylvania movie series.

Like Dracula himself, it seems the fascination with this character can never truly die.