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Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss Sink Their Teeth into Dracula

But Don’t Rule Out “Sherlock”

(Image by Robert Viglasky/BBC/Hartswood Films)

Since leaving Doctor Who, Steven Moffat has had no shortage of television projects. In addition to adapting The Time Traveler’s Wife into a mini-series for HBO, he will reunite with Sherlock co-writer Mark Gatiss to tackle one of the great classics of literature: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The new television series will be a co-production between BBC One and Netflix, with three feature-length episodes making up the bulk of the miniseries. Unlike their adaptation of Sherlock, Dracula will stay set in the Victorian era but recenter the plot where the famous vampire is actually the hero — not the villain — of the classic tale.

While Dracula filming gets underway with Danish actor Claes Bang taking on the iconic role of the titular character, both Moffat and Gatiss hinted that they’d be open to revisiting Sherlock, but for now, the game is off until the vampires are put to sleep.

As an avid Dracula fan since my teenage years, I’m intrigued how Moffat and Gatiss will transform the Count into a hero. Francis Ford Coppola and Gary Oldman took a successful stab at the tragic hero archetype, but I’m not sure if anyone will ever top Oldman’s iconic shapeshifting performance. I’m willing to to wait it out and the same goes for Sherlock, especially if it means they clean up the mess that was that fourth season.

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  1. I believe Gatiss can apply a little dry levity to lift the usually lugubrious demon to a more intellectual plain. I hope hope hope Dracula’s solving mysteries … I don’t fancy him as an action hero! Deck’s too stacked. That may just be a misplaced Sherlock jones, though. Still … Dracula in the role as The Shadow … I’m feelin’ it!

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