It looked like the big screen adaptation of Castlevania was basically dead in the water not too long ago. Director Sylvain White was gone and all signs pointed to the film spending a lot of time languishing in development Hell. Turns out that's not the case at all, actually, as Bloody-Disgusting has got the exclusive scoop that director James Wan (one of the co-creators of the Saw franchise) has come on board the project as a director and co-writer.
Wan tells BD he'll be working with another writer to take the original script in a new direction, but the best quote is the following:
"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."
It seems as though they've finally found someone to make a videogame movie who actually plays and understands the game he's bringing to the big screen. I know Wan's post Saw output hasn't blown anyone away (Dead Silence anyone?) but I think this is a project that may very well get him back on the right track. And let's face it, this is a better choice for director than White or, god forbid, Uwe Boll.
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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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