Eight years after the project was first announced, writer/director Robert Eggers‘ remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic Nosferatu (watch it HERE) is finally in production, with filming taking place in Prague. With the start of production comes the launching of a website, which you can check out at THIS LINK – and which is currently quite low on content. But the website does include some information we haven’t covered here before: Eggers’ The Witch star Ralph Ineson and Simon McBurney are both in the cast!
McBurney has over 60 screen acting credits to his name, stretching back to the 1980s. In recent years he had roles in Carnival Row, The Pale Blue Eye, The Conjuring 2, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (pictured below).
Ineson and McBurney join a cast that includes the previously announced Lily-Rose Depp (Yoga Hosers), Nicholas Hoult (The Menu), Emma Corrin (The Crown), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Bullet Train), and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man: No Way Home), with Bill Skarsgard (It) taking on the role of the title character.
An unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the original Nosferatu has the following synopsis: In this highly influential silent horror film, the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) summons Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen (Greta Schroeder). After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok’s servant, Knock (Alexander Granach), prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.
Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.
Nosferatu was previously remade by Werner Herzog in 1979, with Klaus Kinski playing the title character. The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire was a fictional account of the making of Nosferatu, with Willem Dafoe playing Max Schreck as an actual vampire.
When Eggers’ Nosferatu was first announced in 2015, the expectation was that his The Witch star Anya Taylor-Joy would be playing the Ellen role. But Taylor-Joy had trouble fitting the project into her busy schedule, and on two different occasions when Taylor-Joy was available to work on Nosferatu the project ended up falling apart. (Most recently because Harry Styles has been cast as Hutter, then had to drop out.) So Eggers ended up taking the next opportunity to get Nosferatu made, even if it would be without Taylor-Joy. Her role went to Depp.
Eggers is producing the remake with Jeff Robinson, John Graham, Chris Columbus, and Eleanor Columbus.
Are you looking forward to seeing what Eggers does with Nosferatu – and to seeing what information pops up on the website? What do you think of Ralph Ineson and Simon McBurney joining the cast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.