According to the Hollywood Reporter, Amblin Entertainment has just hired André Øvredal to direct The Last Voyage of The Demeter – an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with a twist. In the novel, Demeter is the sailing ship taking the legendary vampire from Romania to Britain. Throughout the trip, Dracula stealthily hunts and kills the unsuspecting crew one by one. It’s a great little horror story hidden inside a behemoth of a novel that usually either gets only a passing mention in movie adaptations or gets completely ignored.
The Last Voyage of The Demeter has been gestating for almost two decades now. At one moment, the movie was to be directed by David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) with Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3) and Noomi Rapace (Prometheus) in lead roles. This year Øvredal directed Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, an adaptation of horror short stories by Alvin Schwartz. Øvredal also made the horror film The Autopsy of Jane Doe and the horror mockumentary Troll Hunter. His next project is the adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian horror novel The Long Walk after which he will tackle The Last Voyage of The Demeter.
