Leonardo DiCaprio Producing Biopic of DRACULA’s Bela Lugosi

Hollywood’s original Dracula, Bela Lugosi, is getting ready to rise from the grave. Figuratively speaking, that is. According to Deadline, Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company is behind a new biopic of the iconic Hungarian actor, who starred as Dracula in Universal’s 1931 film. The team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski is writing the script. The pair actually wrote Ed Wood, the 1994 film that won Martin Landau the Oscar for portraying an older Lugosi toward the end of his life. The duo is behind many of Hollywood’s most successful biopics, like The People vs. Larry Flynt and the series The People vs. O.J. Simpson.

Lugosi, who emigrated from Hungary in the early 20th century, originated the role of Dracula on the Broadway stage in the 1920s. However, he was not Universal’s first pick to play the iconic vampiric Transylvanian Count, as they wanted a bigger name. But stage actor Lugosi came at a much lower cost, so they hired him. Director Tod Browning’s Dracula became a smash hit for the studio, launching the first true supernatural monster in American cinema. This, of course, led to the Universal Monsters franchise, including Frankenstein, The Mummy, and others.

Lugosi’s version is what we still think of when we think of Dracula. It’s still the version everyone references when parodying the character, like Sesame Street’s Count von Count, or Count Chocula. Even though Dracula made Lugosi a household name, he was forever typecast. By 1941, he was playing supporting roles in movies like The Wolf Man, or comedic versions of his own rendition of Dracula. By the ‘50s, he began starring in Z-list Ed Wood-directed movies to pay his rent. He became so identified with Dracula, when he died in 1956, they even buried him in his cape. However, Hollywood horror wouldn’t exist without the success of his Dracula. And so it’s about time he got his flowers with a proper biopic.