A little while ago, plans for a Castlevania movie based on the action adventure game series by Konami had been scrapped. Now, according to Bloody-Disgusting, James Wan will be writing and directing a Castlevania movie, and Paul W.S. Anderson will don the role of producer. James Wan has been responsible for the successful Saw movie franchise and the more recent Dead Silence and Death Sentence movies.
Speaking to the website, James Wan said, “I’m very fresh on this project, so its early stages and I’m still trying to work things out, but the producers love my vision for it. I’ll be working on the script with a writer to give it a new spin, different to the previous versions. This will have my stamp on it which Konami is very excited about.”
He added, “The thing I love about what Konami did with Castlevania, was taking the iconic Dracula mythology and Eastern-European setting, and retelling it with a Japanese pop-cultural sensibility. That’s the East-meets-West tone I want to visually expand on for the film. I’m thrilled by the opportunity to make a highly stylized, fantasy, action film that focuses on the gothic storyline and the cool, anime-like characters. For once, the human hero is as sexy and dangerous as the vampire villain, and his weapon of choice was what attracted me to the project in the first place – The Vampire Killer Whip.”
Castlevania has been on the drawing board for some time now and was previously supposed to be directed by Sylvain White. Ian Jeffers was the screenwriter for Death Sentence directed by James Wan. Apparently back in 2007, Jeffers was rewriting Castlevania’s script, although it has not been confirmed whether the screenwriter is still on board the film project.
James Wan seems to be pretty well versed with how the horror game franchise has shaped up over the years. If the talented director is able to deliver the same kind of excitement as he did in his previous films, Castlevania could well be on its way to being one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the coming years.