The Minds Behind BBC's Sherlock Are Reviving Dracula

Hello nerds!

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are giving the original vampire a good dusting off and re-introducing Dracula to the world. Along with Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, the duo responsible for gracing the world with Benedict Cumberbatch as  will produce Dracula for Hartswood Films. Sort of like another property of theirs, BBC's Sherlock.

Even though it's early days for the project, the creators of the shared some insights with Radio Times, and Mark Gatiss offered up as much detail as he could. 

“Dracula? Well, we’ve got a lot of ideas, we need to go and sit down now and really talk about it. But once we get moving, we’ll move fast.

It’s early stages, we’ve had a lot of talks, a lot of meetings, our favourite part – throwing ideas around. We’re going to go away to start writing it… is it February yet? Next month.”

With Moffat and Gatiss putting pen to paper in the coming weeks, thoughts tend to drift towards whom will be playing the Transylvanian prince of the night. Sadly, since the scripts haven't yet been written, there's been no indication of who will play the Count. Or Countess.

“Who could play Dracula himself? Well, that’s a very good question, or herself? No, that’s a mistake. That’ll haunt me for the next 10 years.

It’s a very interesting question, because in Stoker’s novel he’s an old man, who does get younger. That’s rarely done. Gary Oldman did it, it’s rarely done. That’s quite interesting.”

I'm a fan of a lot of what Gatiss has done that I've seen (Sherlock, some Doctor Who), so I'm more than OK with him being partially responsible for this revival of a truly fantastic character. And thankfully, it turns out Gatiss is a lifelong fan of the romantically undead, so it does offer some comfort to know the mini-movies will be focused on Stoker's original vision of the character and not some of the dreck that's been farted out over the past few decades. 

“But obviously, the point of Dracula was that he’s the first kind of Byronic vampire. He’s the first one that set pulses racing. The vampire tradition up to Stoker is much more horrible.

I remember reading a book when I was a child, a pre-Dracula book, and when they find the vampire it’s fat like a slug, full of blood and its mouth is all gory. And I was horrified by that! Because you kind of grow up with the idea of Dracula being much more sophisticated. We’re not gonna go down that [slug] model, I think. So it’s a question of where we land on that scale, really. No idea who it’s going to be.”

Steven Moffat on the other hand, offered a more curt response when asked about the project.

“I’m really not telling you anything about what we’ve got. We know what we’re doing, but we’re not saying it yet.”

Ah, Moffat giving cagey responses. How quaint. However, Moffat does go on to offer a somewhat clearer answer when asked about a potential premiere date for the first 90 minute special. The former Doctor Who showrunner simply stated, it'll be “two years at least”, until we see the ole bloodsucker on our television screens. So, we've got that going for us. Which is nice.