Just because the world needs yet another vampire film and fast, Universal Pictures has decided to put together one more adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic tale of Dracula.  Currently the show has cast Luke Evans and Sarah Gadon and today it looks like they’ve added someone new to the list – Dominic Cooper.

For those of you that don’t recognize the name (i.e.: most of you), Cooper is the guy that played the in-the-past version of Howard Stark in the first Captain America flick.  No word yet on who he’ll be playing in this one, though I do wonder if maybe his involvement in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter may have gotten him typecast.

Given the mediocre talent level that this film is collecting and the predictably recycled subject matter, I’m guessing the new Dracula is going to be one hell of a turkey.

If you feel the need to mark your calendar, it’s scheduled to release on August 8^th of 2014.

Thanks to ComicBookMovie for the heads-up.

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Reading some of the reviews of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, you get the sneaking suspicion that a lot of my fellow critics believed they were walking into some camp ground of historical meta-fiction where the 16^th President of the United States would dispatch bloodsuckers with some Schwarzeneggerian one-liners. But that’s not the case, and this is where being of the nerdy persuasion has advantages over other critics.

I’m only about 100 pages into Seth Grahame-Smith’s original novel and can say easily that there isn’t an ounce of camp between the pages. It’s no sketch either, as it’s also been compared to a Saturday Night Live skit. The book is a surprisingly thoughtful, well-researched alterna-biography of Lincoln. As if there really was a vampire named Henry carrying around “Honest” Abe’s secret diaries all this time and showed them to Grahame-Smith.

As for the movie, it carries none of the book’s subtlety, but being from the director of Wanted, Timur Bekmambetov, I didn’t expect there to be much. Although clearly more horror flavoured than recent vampire films like Twilight or Priest, the potential for straight-up horror is replaced with absurdest, nearly over the top action sequences complete with CG blood spurts. I think we wanted something closer to Bram Stoker’s Dracula rather than something that feels cut from the cloth of Van Helsing.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter -the fantasy/horror novel turned live action feature film- could be one of the hottest movies of the summer. Seriously, how could you go wrong with an American icon swinging axes like a boss and slaying Vampires? It’s so good, that creatives are already taken sequel.  In an interview with Screen Rant, Seth Grahame-Smith – author of the original novel as well as the script for the film adaptation – talked about a sequel potential.

“The short answer is yes, absolutely.”, says Grahame-Smith. Confirming that the Abe Lincoln’s origin story isn’t yet completed in Vampire Hunter, the possibility of a sequel could be in the works. Even with the average history nut knowing that Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865 this may not be the last we see of the American president. Here’s what director Timur Bekambetov had to say:

“If you read the book there’s an epilogue that leaves things open to that. In the film, without giving anything away, we don’t definitively end the origin story. We leave, not only a mentor story, but also possibly a Lincoln story open.”

“The scary thing is that they can convert you.”, says Bekambetov. “This is the scariest thing. Because we know that Lincoln was killed in the theater, but the whole movie you are afraid that they will bite him and we don’t know who was killed in that theater, and how…”

Could it be that Abe would return as some kind of Wesley Snipes‘ Blade, slaying vampires while fighting his own thirst for human blood? Sounds like a worthwhile sequel for the man who freed the slaves- in between chopping off Vampire heads.

Starring Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Anthony Mackie and Alan Tudyk, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is set to arrive in theatres everywhere June 22nd, later this year.

Source: Comic Book Movie

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Twentieth Century Fox has put a behind-the-scenes video, an international poster, and a couple of new stills for their upcoming movie, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The two stills are not much to look at but it does drive home the point that Abe loves, and will be swinging his favorite axe. The movie poster is not what I was looking for either, we need to see Abe in the oval office polishing his axe.

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes video, it’s fun.

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the supernatural thriller is based on the book by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also penned the script. Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jimmi Simpson, Robin McLeavy, Alan Tudyk and Rufus Sewell star in the June 22 release.

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We’ve got two official posters for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Directed by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (who also did Wanted), we’ve got Benjamin Walker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Alan Tudyk, Anthony Mackie and Dominic Cooper as part of the cast.  The author of the original novel, Seth Grahame-Smith, wrote the screenplay himself.  Hopefully this means good things.

Official plot synopsis:

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter explores the secret life of our greatest President, and the untold story that shaped our nation. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted) bring a fresh and visceral voice to the blood-thirsty lore of the vampire, imagining Lincoln as history’s greatest hunter of the undead.

The film opens June 22, 2012.

Hit the jump for the posters.  They’re pretty fuckin’ sick.

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