Of Course Nicolas Cage Is Universal's New Dracula

Universal continues to bring their monster library back from the dead (after Tom Cruise’s The Mummy killed it), as their follow-up to Invisible Man will, fittingly, feature the most famous undead monster of them all: Dracula. Though it won’t focus on him. Titled Renfield, the upcoming movie will instead tell the story of the titular lunatic asylum patient from Dracula who consumes live animals in order to gain immortality because he believes that blood is the key to eternal life. And because the original novel was released before the invention of the plot twist, it, of course, later turns out that Renfield was being controlled by Dracula, who, once again, will not be the star of the film.

But what Renfield lacks in focus on Ol’ Straw Fangs, as nobody calls Dracula, it will more than make up for in its number of Nics, having 4 Nics-worth of actors in major roles, with Renfield being played by Nicholas Hoult and Dracula being portrayed by none other than Nicolas Cage. And before you criticize my math, please take into accounts that 1 Nicolas Cage is worth a minimum of 3 uncaged Nics. Also, fair warning, all the pictures in this article will be of Nicolas Cage with vampire fangs badly drawn on him in MS Paint because that just … makes a lot of sense to me for some reason.

That’s not to imply I’m not stoked for Hoult appearing in the movie. He’s a very talented actor who’s really broadening his range. It feels like only yesterday that he was playing Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road, a man consuming blood in order to stay alive while being under the powerful psychological hold of an “immortal” monster with terrifying teeth who extends his life by consuming a bodily fluid and promising his followers eternal life. And now he’s playing a do I even need to finish the joke? We good? We all get where I’m going with it? It’s kind of what I do:

Anyhoo, I really am excited, though, because, in Dracula (the original, not the bootleg Nordic version with more sex and Nazis), Renfield provided a lot of great psychological insight into the mind of a mad person, and it will be fascinating to see Hoult take on that role. But let’s not pretend for a second that we all won’t be lining up to the premiere mainly to see Nicolas Cage tackling Dracula, which may or may not be literal. 

Maybe there will be a scene in the movie where he, like … splits into two and literally wrestles himself (yes, OF COURSE, fully nude)? You don’t know. I don’t know. Nobody knows how Nicolas Cage’s brain works or what demands he might make during the shoot because Nicolas Cage believes that when he’s acting, he enters a kind of mystical trance like ancient shamans. That’s also how he describes his acting style: “Nouveau Shamanic,” and you want to know the craziest part? I haven’t made any of that up.

For some time now, Cage has mostly stayed away from big-budget Hollywood productions, focusing on more off-beat roles that fascinate him and the ghost of the talking pony skeleton that only he can see. So hopefully, he’s appearing in Renfield because something about the story lit a fire of creativity inside him, and not because he’s in debt after spending $150 million on a dinosaur skull, pygmy heads, and two castles. Again, not making it up. You should learn by now that when it comes to anything related to Nicolas Cage, the truth is always stranger than fiction, befitting a guy who named himself and his child after comic-book characters. Oh, and also, Awkwafina will co-star in the movie. WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT ASSUMING I’M JOKING ABOUT ANYTHING CAGE-RELATED?

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Top Image: Dimension Films