In extremely disappointing news, it looks like Karyn Kusama’s Mina Harker just got dusted. The Jennifer’s Body director was set to direct a woman-centered take on Dracula which would focus on the novel’s heroine Mina Harker. The film would have seen Jasmine Cephas Jones (Hamilton, Blindspotting) in the title role, as Harker encounters Dracula in present-day Los Angeles. It’s a surprising turn for the Blumhouse and Miramax project, which was apparently only 3 weeks away from shooting. Miramax was said to have left the project over creative differences with Kusama. Phil Hay, one of the film’s co-writers, tweeted about the film’s cancellation.
Mina Harker was supposed to be the next film in Blumhouse’s reimagined takes on Universal’s classic monsters. After The Mummy (2017) simultaneously launched and killed the planned interconnected Dark Universe, Universal and Blumhouse pivoted to making filmmaker-driven standalone monster movies. Their first entry, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, was a critically acclaimed small-scale horror film anchored by Elisabeth Moss’s terrific performance as a woman stalked by her abusive ex.
It’s frustrating a woman director would be denied the opportunity for a feminist-centered Dracula story. We’ve seen countless iterations of Bram Stoker’s vampire in film and television, most recently in Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat’s bizarre Dracula miniseries for BBC/Netflix. But apparently, there’s no love for a woman director’s vision.
Kusama has proven time and time again that she’s an original and creative horror director. Her 2009 horror-comedy Jennifer’s Body has achieved cult status since its 2009 release after it was misunderstood by critics at the time. In addition, she gave us the terrific Nicole Kidman crime drama Destroyer and low-budget thriller The Invasion. Most recently she was an executive producer and pilot director for Showtime’s breakout horror series Yellowjackets. Let’s be real: if Kusama was a man, she would have already been handed the keys to a major studio franchise.
Aside from creative differences, Universal is already making a different Dracula movie with Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War). Renfield is a horror-comedy that sees Dracula’s titular henchman (played by The Great‘s Nicholas Hoult) who leaves his job after falling love. Nicolas Cage will play Dracula, which is pretty irresistible casting. In addition to Renfield, Nathalie Emmanuel and Garrett Hedlund are starring in the horror-thriller The Bride, about a young woman seduced by Dracula. It’s unfortunate timing for Kusama and her film.
Horror fans and figures took to Twitter to express their disappointment in the film’s cancellation:
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
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