Universal Pictures’ upcoming film Dracula has recently added a host of new cast members, including Samantha Barks (Les Miserables), Art Parkinson (HBO’s Game of Thrones), Charlie Cox (Stardust, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire) and Icelandic actor Thor Kristjansson. They will join an existing cast which includes Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis) and Luke Evans (The Raven, Fast & Furious 6) as the title character.
Barks is a singer who made her film debut as Eponine in the award winning 2012 film Les Miserables. In Dracula she will play a beautiful young woman who is turned into a bloodthirsty witch. In Eastern European folklore this is a figure known as a baba yaga. Kristjansson, who starred in the 2012 Icelandic film Black’s Game (which happens to be the largest grossing film in Iceland) will play a slave-turned-assassin known as Bright Eyes. Parkinson, who is best known as the young child Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones will play the role of Dracula’s son Ingeras.
The film, which will be directed by Gary Shore, will combine mythology and history to tell the famous vampire’s origin story. Evans will portray not the ruthless vampire most are familiar with, but the prince who risked his soul to save his wife and child, a decision which ultimately led to his transformation into Dracula.
Since filming finished on Fast & Furious 6 Evans has been a busy man. He first travelled to New Zealand to for an additional five and a half weeks of filming for the second two installments of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, in which he will play Bard the Bowman. Next, filming will begin for Dracula in Belfast, following which Evans is set to play Eric Draven in the upcoming remake of The Crow.
Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless penned the script for Dracula, and Michael De Luca is producing the film.
Dracula is currently in pre-production and is scheduled for an August 8, 2014 release.