I was going to start off this story by saying that it was bad news for the fans of the whip-wielding, vampire-slaying Belmont clan, but I'm not entirely convinced that news stating the planned live action adaptation of Konami's wildly popular Castlevania series is dead is a particularly bad thing.
Don't get me wrong–I'd be interested in seeing a Castlevania movie—but preferrably one done right. This planned outing involved Paul W.S. Anderson and the director of Stomp the Yard, which is hardly what I'd call conducive to making a fantastic film (Anderson does sort of okay with the Resident Evil flicks, but I wouldn't call them “good”).
The guys over at Bloody-Disgusting have heard from their sources that the film, which was to focus on Dracula and the rise of the Belmont clan sworn to defeat him, has fallen into development hell—a place where films that almost were go to die or languish for eternity. Think of it as movie purgatory.
This doesn't mean that we'll never see a Castlevania film—it just means that if we do eventually get one, it will probably be radically different from what Anderson and company came up with on this go 'round.
Rest in peace, Dracula.
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A film critic by trade, specializing in Euro-horror, cult exploitation, and Asian action cinema, Mike has written reviews for a diverse group of print and online publications. He covers horror news, movies, books, and games at TheHorrorGeek.com and Horrorsquad.com and spent two seasons as The Horror Geek on Comedy Central's pop-culture game show, Beat the Geeks.
Mike's childhood was spent playing videogames any time he got a chance. His parents had a Pong console and his grandmother had an Atari 2600, where Mike cultivated his skills by playing hour upon hour of games like Space Invaders, Berserk, and Asteroids. From those early experiences Mike learned one thing: he loved games.
In 1999, Mike became a staff reviewer at Cinescape Magazine's website where he spent a year learning the craft of game criticism. After internal changes led to Mike leaving Cinescape in late 2000, he joined up with RPGFan in 2001 and spent several years writing reviews for them. Happy, but looking for an opportunity to expound on a wider variety of titles, Mike joined GameCritics.com and hopes to help Chi, Dale, and the rest of the GC staff bring a higher level of respect to the field of game criticism.
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