A few weeks ago, director Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War) let the world know that his upcoming Universal Monsters movie Renfield, which stars the legendary Nicolas Cage as horror icon Dracula and is set to reach theatres on April 14, 2023, has “got action, it’s got a lot of heart, it’s not without menace…” And now the ratings board at the Motion Picture Association has added that the film has “bloody violence, some gore, language throughout, and some drug use.” That is why they have given it an R rating.
Based on a treatment written by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Renfield was directed by McKay 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.
Renfield is played by Nicholas Hoult. Cage and Hoult are joined in the cast by 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 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.
Despite the fact that Kirkman has mentioned the violence of the project multiple times, I am somewhat surprised that Renfield has been given an R rating. I thought Universal might want to go softer with it, since it’s also a comedy. But I’m looking forward to seeing the bloody violence and gore it brings to the screen. Are you looking forward to Renfield? Let us know by leaving a comment below.