Universal Pictures will be releasing their Dracula comedy Renfield, starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as his titular lackey, on April 14th – and with that date just over a month away, a few new images from the film have arrived (thanks to Total Film) and can be seen at the bottom of this article. These images feature Hoult’s Renfield, Awkwafina as traffic cop Rebecca Quincy, Shohreh Aghdashloo as a feared crime lord named Ella, and yes, Cage’s Dracula.
Based on a treatment written by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Renfield was 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.
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.
The actors mentioned above (and seen in the images below) are joined in the cast by Adrian Martinez as Rebecca’s traffic cop partner Chris, 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 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 Renfield with David Alpert, Bryan Furst, and Sean Furst of Skybound Entertainment, alongside McKay’s producing partner Samantha Nisenboim.
Renfield has been rated R for bloody violence, some gore, language throughout, and some drug use.
Are you looking forward to Renfield, and what did you think of the new images? Let us know by leaving a comment below.