Nineteen years after the initial screenplay for Last Voyage of the Demeter was written by Bragi Schut (Escape Room), the Bram Stoker-inspired project is finally making its way into production with André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) at the helm. Several months ago, we learned that Corey Hawkins of The Walking Dead and Kong: Skull Island had signed on to be the first cast member, and now the names of ten more cast members have been announced. They are Aisling Franciosi, David Dastmalchian, Liam Cunningham, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapicic, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Woody Norman, Martin Furulund, and Chris Walley, with creature performer Javier Botet taking on the role of Dracula.
Coming to us from Amblin, Last Voyage of the Demeter has the following synopsis:
The film is based on a single chapter, the Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula. The chapter tells the story of the Russian schooner, Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – twenty four unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. The film will detail the strange events that befell the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a terrifying presence onboard the ship. When it finally arrived near Whitby Harbour, it was a derelict. There was no trace of the crew.
Franciosi (The Nightingale) will be playing Anna, a stowaway; Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad) is Wojchek, the Demeter's first mate; Cunningham (Dog Soldiers) is the ship's stately captain; Briones (Ratched) is the ship's cook; and Kapicic (Deadpool) and Nikolaeff (Daredevil) are crew members. Details on the characters being played by Norman (Poldark), Furulund (In Order of Disappearance) and Walley (1917) were not revealed. It's probably safe to assume that they're crew members as well. Norman is a young kid, but could be the ship's cabin boy, something I only know about because of the 1994 Chris Elliott movie.
The 6'7" Botet has played creatures in several genre films, including [REC], Mama, Crimson Peak, The Conjuring 2, Alien: Covenant, and It. His casting implies that the Dracula in this film is going to be quite monstrous.
Last Voyage of the Demeter will be filming in Berlin and Malta. The film is being produced by Bradley Fischer, Mike Medavoy, and Arnold Messer. Jeb Brody and Mia Maniscalco are overseeing the project for Amblin.
The latest draft of the screenplay was written by Zak Olkewicz, who worked on the Fear Street trilogy that is being released on Netflix this month.