2023 is a year when movie-goers rejected Dracula not just once but twice. Universal released two well-reviewed Dracula projects this year – the horror comedy Renfield and the more serious The Last Voyage of the Demeter – and both of them tanked at the box office. Renfield couldn’t even crack the $27 million mark at the global box office, and Demeter, which reached theatres on August 11th, has only made $15 million so far. Hoping to have better luck in the home video market, Universal has already given The Last Voyage of the Demeter a digital release, and you can check it out at THIS LINK.
Escaping development hell twenty years after the script was first written (Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz receive writing credits on the finished film), The Last Voyage of the Demeter is based on a single chapter, the Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The film tells the story of the merchant ship Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – fifty unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. Strange events befall the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a merciless presence onboard the ship. When the Demeter finally arrives off the shores of England, it is a charred, derelict wreck. There is no trace of the crew.
Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) as Clemens, a doctor who joins the Demeter crew; Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale) as an unwitting stowaway; Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) as the ship’s captain; and David Dastmalchian (the Ant-Man franchise) as the Demeter’s first mate. Also in the cast are Jon Jon Briones (American Horror Story), Stefan Kapicic (Deadpool films), and Nikolai Nikolaeff (Stranger Things), with Javier Botet (Mama) as Dracula. You can watch our interviews with Hawkins and Botet HERE.
Directed by André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), The Last Voyage of the Demeter came our way from DreamWorks Pictures. The project was produced by Brad Fischer and Mike Medavoy and Arnold Messer for Phoenix Pictures. Matthew Hirsch serves as executive producer.
Will you be watching The Last Voyage of the Demeter on digital? Let us know by leaving a comment below – and if you caught the movie on the big screen, let us know what you thought of it.