Hammer Films 'Will Definitely' Remake Dracula

Ever since the revival of Hammer Films a few years back, fans of their golden era have wondered how long it would be until remakes and reboots and re-imagines of their most famous characters and films from that period would be put into production. Top of the list of these would undoubtedly be Dracula, Bram Stoker's undead sensation which spawned a nine film franchise between 1958 and 1974 at Hammer, with Christopher Lee immortalising the character in more than a half a dozen films. They were arguably the most loved film interpretations of the Gothic horror story. Now according to Hammer Films CEO Simon Oakes, riding high on the US box office of The Woman in Black (which opens in the UK on Friday and is seriously great) the company are "looking at the possibility of a contemporary Dracula" and even a new version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He told Digital Spy; "We can't really tell you much about it but we really are looking at it," he said. "I've been saying that we'd never remake the films per se, but we would do our own versions of it. "Certainly in my time with Hammer we will definitely do a Dracula. We will do a Frankenstein if we can find a route in. It's about finding a route in that makes it your film." "There's a number of Draculas going on at the moment - there's a Vlad the Impaler film, a few other ones around, but we have a sense of what we'd like to do. It will be a London-based Dracula." The last quote is particularly revealing as it suggests Oakes has thought more deeply about a Dracula film than he is letting on and when asked about the filmmaker he would go after to revive the film franchise, he started to shuffle; "We do, but we can't really say right now. My PR people are shaking their heads! I can not tell you. Just watch this space, we will be coming up with something relatively soon." Very, very interesting. Hammer are currently in early pre-production on their next film The Quiet Ones, a movie to be written by The Messenger and Rampart's director Oren Moverman, showing their stance on hiring high pedigree talent for their productions. "It's a poltergeist movie based on a true story set in a university campus... It's a well-constructed story, very visceral in its scares but fundamentally what's behind it is incredible characters. That's the next Hammer film," he said. Post-that, Hammer are looking to launch a series of films based on Cherie Priest's Boneshaker novel. "It's a steampunk novel set in 1860s Seattle," he said. "We think it's a potential franchise for us, but we say that with dread. If you make the first one and it doesn't work, we know that there goes our franchise. Cherie is writing a series of novels and the first one is fantastic." And of course Dracula & Frankenstein, whenever they might happen... Hammer's The Woman in Black is just a few days away from release in the UK. Go and see it if you can, it's the first great movie of the year.