After Werner Herzog’s film released in 1979, “Nosferatu” will be the subject of a second remake. Signed Robert Eggers (“The Witch”, “The Northman”) and expected on January 1, 2025 in French cinemas. Here’s what we know about the project.
It’s well known: vampires are immortal (as long as they don’t cross paths with the sun and their hearts don’t collide with a wooden stake). While Dracula continues to be reborn on the big screen, Nosferatu will also return to the cinemas, a little over a hundred years after the original film, a horror classic by FW Murnau.
Release date: when is Nosferatu released? Where will we see it?
Expected for Christmas in American theaters, Nosferatu will come to spend the New Year in our company. The release of the film is in fact scheduled for January 1, 2025 in France. And in the cinema, where it will be distributed by Universal.
Casting: who stars in Nosferatu?
After Max Schreck and Klaus Kinski, in a first remake by Werner Herzog in 1979, the creature will this time be played by Bill Skarsgard, a regular at transformations and monsters, who we are told, once again, unrecognizable . Which we are forced to believe for the moment, for lack of having seen the slightest image of him in the film.
Facing him, Nicholas Hoult will be Thomas Hutter, who discovers Count Orlok’s castle in the Carpathians. And Lily-Rose Depp his wife Ellen, with whom the vampire will fall in love before tracking her down in 19th century Germany.
Universal Pictures International France
After playing Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire, the story of the filming of the first Nosferatu, Willem Dafoe will track down Count Orlok in the guise of Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, a hunter inspired by the character of Bulwer in the original. Who was a derivative of Van Helsing in the “Dracula” by Bram Stoker.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson will play the role of Friedrich Harding, a friend of Hutter who should have a slightly more important role in this new film. Just like his wife Anna, played by Emma Corrin.
The cast will, finally, be completed by Simon McBurney (Knock, businessman who has a telepathic link with Orlok and sends Hutter into his clutches) and Ralph Ineson, in the role of Doctor Wilhelm Sievers.
All in front of Robert Eggers’ camera. Which, after a detour through Viking mythology (The Northman), returns to the gothic horror of The Witch, the film of his debut. But without Anya Taylor-Joy.
The story: what will Nosferatu tell?
To put it simply: if you want to know the story of Nosferatu, you take the story of Dracula, and you change the names. Because FW Murnau’s film is an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, which the rights holders have not validated.
Robert Eggers’ version should therefore retain many elements, from the overall plot to 19th century Germany as the location of the action, including the look of Count Orlok, very far from the seductive side often associated with vampires ( but which was found, in part, in Werner Herzog’s film).
Universal Pictures International France
The rest is a mystery. But, knowing the director, the horror should be more graphic than in 1922, and the result just as stylized but in its own way, far from German expressionism of which the original Nosferatu was one of the most iconic representatives.
In the absence of a trailer, for the moment, we must therefore adhere to the words of the director, who affirms that Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) will be more central in the plot, and that it will be even more difficult to recognize Bill Skarsgard as in It.
However, he will see you in French theaters on January 1, 2025, to wish you good luck.