Eli Roth

It looks like ‘Hemlock Grove’ won’t be the only project that Eli Roth and Brian McGeevy will be working on together as Roth is currently in talks to helm the feature film ‘Harker’ which now has Russell Crowe starring.

‘Harker’ is based on a spec script by McGeevy and his writing partner Lee Shipman and is a revision of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ about a Scotland Yard detective named Jonathan Harker who is investigating a series of brutal murders which leads him to the head vampire himself. If the name of the movie sounds familiar, that’s because in the original tale, Harker was the English lawyer that encountered Dracula’s brides and joined Van Helsing to bring the monster down. In previous ‘Dracula’ films, Keanu Reeves and Rafe Spall both played this protagonistic role.

Contrary to original reports, Crowe will not be starring in the lead but instead will be playing the role of the blood-thirsty Dracula. Although the movie is being produced as a possible franchise, Crowe has so far only agreed to do this first film.

Originally Jaume Collet-Serra (‘Orphan,’ ‘The River’) was set to helm ‘Harker’ but, after ‘Akira’ was shelved due to script and budget reasons, Collet-Serra moved on to other projects. He’s currently involved with the Liam Neeson action thriller ‘Nonstop’ and has lined up the sci-fi film ‘Here There Be Monsters’ with Bradley Cooper to follow. As Warner Bros now wants to fast track ‘Harker,’ Collet-Serra has become too busy to direct the film and the studio has now approached Roth.

At the moment, no one has been cast in the lead role of Harker but that should change once reworking of the script is finished. “Once they figure out the story then they’ll figure out who’s right to play him,” a source says. The studio hopes is to have the film start production sometime next year.

Source: Deadline