Following this year's 10th century Viking epic, The Northman, auteur filmmaker Robert Eggers will next helm something a bit more modern with his long-awaited take on Nosferatu, a reimagining of the 19th-century vampire story adapted from the 100-year-old classic film. We did say a bit more modern.
The film is set up at Focus Features, the production company behind The Northman, with Bill Skarsgård and Lily-Rose Depp set to star, according to Deadline. Skarsgård will portray the titular Transylvanian monster with Depp as the "haunted young woman" he stalks. Eggers wrote the script and will direct.
The 1922 Nosferatu was directed by German filmmaker F. W. Murnau as an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stroker's turn-of-the-century novel, Dracula. The silent film starred Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire that takes a bloodthirsty interest in Ellen Hutter (Greta Schröder), the wife of his real estate agent Thomas (Gustav von Wangenheim). The film was remade in 1979 as Nosferatu the Vampyre, written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani.
Nosferatu has been a longtime passion project for Eggers and was previously set to reunite him with his The Northman actress, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Harry Styles as Hutter. At one point, Eggers also expressed interest in frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe playing Orlok. (Funnily enough, Dafoe previously played Max Schreck in 2000's Shadow of the Vampire, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.)
"Nosferatu is such an incredibly important film and story for me, so it's always percolating," Eggers told /Film earlier this year. But after the production fell apart twice, he admitted in a separate interview with IndieWire, "I just wonder if Murnau's ghost is telling me, like, you should stop."
Skarsgård has become the go-to actor for horror, having played Pennywise in It and It Chapter Two along with starring in this summer's surprise hit, Barbarian, while Depp's recent credits include 2021's sci-fi thriller Voyagers and psychological drama Wolf.
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