Universal Pictures has announced an April 14, 2023 theatrical release date for About Renfield, the Universal Monsters project that was previously just titled Renfield. Currently filming in New Orleans, About Renfield stars Nicolas Cage as Dracula, with Nicholas Hoult as his lackey Renfield. Hoult starred in a movie called About a Boy when he was a kid, so I guess the title About Renfield is supposed to be a nod to that.
Based on a treatment written by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, About Renfield is being directed by Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War) from a screenplay by Ryan Ridley (Rick and Morty). In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula,
R.M. Renfield was an inmate at a lunatic asylum who was thought to be suffering from delusions but actually is a servant of Dracula. Plot details of the movie weren’t announced, but it’s believed to take place during the present day and is not a period piece.
In this film, Renfield has been serving the bloodsucker for centuries, and now he
has grown sick and tired of his centuries as Dracula’s lackey. The henchman finds a new lease on life life and maybe even redemption when he falls for feisty, perennially angry traffic cop Rebecca Quincy.
Cage and Hoult’s co-stars include Awkwafina as traffic cop Rebecca Quincy, Adrian Martinez as her traffic cop partner Chris, Shohreh Aghdashloo as a feared crime lord named Ella, Bess Rous as “people in toxic relationships” support group member Caitlyn, and James Moses Black and Ben Schwartz in unspecified roles.
While Universal is developing several monster projects, they were excited to get About Renfield into production first. According to Deadline, the story’s “mix of humor and action was something the studio was looking for because so many of the other properties have more of a horror element to them.”
Kirkman, who has described the film as “a violent comedy”, is producing About Renfield with David Alpert, Bryan Furst, and Sean Furst of Skybound Entertainment, alongside McKay’s producing partner Samantha Nisenboim.