Bram Stoker descendent and historian pen Dracula sequel
How many vampires are too many vampires?
With HBO, Guillermo del Toro, modern book-to-film adaptations and even Owen Wilson
all newly invested in the latest craze for fanged exploits, the
marketplace seems pretty cornered. But don’t tell that to Dacre Stoker.
The great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker—hey, we don’t make this stuff
up—has teamed with the historian Ian Holt to deliver a sequel to the original Dracula novel, this time called Dracula: The Un-Dead, for a $1 million advance from publishers.
The new novel, set for an October 2009 release, will be the first Dracula title approved by the Stoker estate since the classic 1931 film version (pictured above). Plot details are thin—it will involve the son of Jonathan Harker working on a stage production about Dracula in London some time after the original text—but it seems certain the new authors will have some explaining to do in the early pages given the way the original novel ended for the titular character.
Predictably, the film rights have already been snagged by a handful of Hollywood producers, among them special-effects zealot Jan de Bont (known for Speed and Twister). Be forewarned: If he manages to get hired as director, we could easily have have another Van Helsing on our hands.
Related links:
Google Books: Full text of Dracula by Bram Stoker
Dracula (1931) on IMDb
YouTube: A famous sequence from Dracula
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