Hot off the success from his work on Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, director Dexter Fletcher is moving away from music biopics for a while to helm Universal monster movie Renfield.
The film, which is based on an original pitch from The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman, will follow Dracula’s henchman. Details about the plot are being kept under wraps, but Variety reports that the film could take place during the present day.
The script has been written by Rick And Morty scribe Ryan Ridley, and Kirkman, David Alpert, Bryan Furst and Sean Furst will produce for Skybound Entertainment.
In Bram Stoker’s original novel, RM Renfield was an inmate at a lunatic asylum thought to be suffering from delusions. Instead, he was actually a servant of Dracula.
Several actors have played the role of Renfield on screen before, including Dwight Frye in Dracula (1931), Tom Waits in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Peter MacNicol in Mel Brooks’ parody Dracula: Dead And Loving It (1995), and Samuel Barnett in TV series Penny Dreadful.
As well as directing Rocketman and replacing Bryan Singer as director for the final two weeks of Bohemian Rhapsody, Fletcher is known for helming Sunshine On Leith, Eddie The Eagle and Wild Bill, which he also wrote. He is set to direct Sherlock Holmes 3, which will be released in 2021.
Get all the latest sci-fi news with every issue of SciFiNow.