Vampire Comedy Renfield Wraps Production

We hope you’re not tired of vampires yet because we have more news on yet another vampire-themed production.

Syfy Wire reports that production just wrapped on the vampire horror comedy film, Renfield, starring Nicolas Cage as the bloodsucker that everyone loves to hate, or some love to love, Dracula. Renfield is set for release on April 14, 2023.

For Dracula fans, Renfield needs no introduction. However, he’s been portrayed in many ways over the years, from Dwight Frye’s wild-eyed madman in 1931’s Dracula to Tom Waits’ tortured soul in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Usually depicted as Dr. Seward’s enigmatic “zoophagous” patient, Renfield is always Dracula’s unwitting partner-in-crime. Renfield sometimes withdraws his allegiance to Dracula and suffers the Count’s wrath. Needless to say, Dracula’s cast of characters is treated differently with each reimagining of Bram Stoker’s original story.

In the upcoming Renfield, Nicholas Hoult (X Men: First Class) plays the titular character opposite Cage as Dracula. SyFy quotes writer Robert Kirkman (creator of comics Invincible and The Walking Dead) from a Comic-Con@Home spotlight panel last year. “The whole plot is that Renfield is Dracula’s servant and decides that he doesn’t want to be his servant anymore, and it’s that conflict that kind of drives the story. So yeah, Dracula’s actually a big part of the movie.” The movie is set in modern times.

Nicholas Hoult in a scene from XMen: Days of Future Past (2014). — Nicholas Hoult in a scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).

Renfield is based on Kirkman’s original story. Ryan Ridley (Rick and Morty) wrote the screenplay for Renfield. Filming started this year in February. Director Chris McKay (The Tomorrow Wars’, The LEGO Batman Movie) told Syfy that Renfield is “a movie about co-dependency and it’s about bad bosses. It’s definitely a horror-action movie, but it’s also obviously a comedy and it’s also gonna be a lot of fun.”

Nicolas Cage’s casting as Dracula was announced last year. Cage said of his approach to the role, “The key, I think, is movement. I saw a movie called Malignant and the director James Wan and the actress [Annabelle Wallis] created this choreography that was terrifying. So I’m hoping to do something like that where Dracula can either glide or move like Sadako in Ringu.“

Renfield’s cast also includes Awkwafina (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog), James Moses (Queenpins), and Adrian Martinez (Stumptown).