Universal's Dracula-adjacent film Renfield has lined up a new director in the form of Chris McKay.
According to Deadline, McKay is in talks to direct and produce Renfield, based on a script by Ryan Ridley and a story outline from Robert Kirkman. The film will revolve around Count Dracula's familiar R.M. Renfield, who first appeared in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and has been included in most adaptations of the story since then. Most recently, the character was re-imagined as Frank Renfield, Count Dracula's present-day lawyer, in Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's Dracula miniseries.
Renfield was first announced in Nov. 2019, with Rocketman and Eddie the Eagle director Dexter Fletcher attached to call the shots based on Kirkman's pitch. Back then, the movie was described as being more of a horror/comedy in the vein of What We Do in the Shadows, with Renfield realizing he is in "a bad, co-dependent relationship" with Count Dracula. However, it appears Fletcher has since stepped down, with McKay taking his spot.
McKay served as an animation co-director on 2014's The LEGO Movie before helming its first spinoff, The LEGO Batman Movie, three years later. The latter film was both a critical and financial success, with McKay earning praise for the way he blended fast-paced action scenes with equally rapid-fire comedy and character-based storytelling. His ability to balance these things reportedly helped land him the job of directing Renfield, which Deadline describes as being more of an action/comedy than a straight horror film.
Universal originally planned to reboot its monster movies as part of an interconnected franchise called the Dark Universe but changed direction after 2017's The Mummy was met with negative reviews and underwhelming box office. Instead, the studio is now moving forward with a series of standalone reboots and re-imaginings of its iconic horror properties, building on the success of Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man. In addition to Renfield, that slate includes a new version of The Wolfman starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Whannell, along with a Van Helsing movie produced by James Wan and a sci-fi/western take on Dracula from Nomadland and Eternals director Chloé Zhao.
McKay's next film, The Tomorrow War, is a sci-fi action/thriller about a group of soldiers and civilians who're taken to the future to fight in a war against an invading alien species. Its cast includes Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, J.K. Simmons and Mary Lynn Rajskub.
Source: Deadline