Deadline is reporting that once hot horror guru Eli Roth is in serious talks to helm Harker, a re-imagining of Dracula that puts Jonathan Harker center stage as a Scotland Yard sleuth tracking the blood-lovin’ Count. This thing is being fast-tracked at Warner Bros, who smell a potential franchise, and the craziest part is that Russell Crowe is attached. To play Dracula.

Russell Crowe is attached to play Dracula.

Is that a good thing? I have no idea. All I know is that Russell Crowe is attached to play Dracula. This is only slightly weirder than my fantasy of casting Scott Bakula as Dracula.

Anyway, I love Dracula, and you know what? I love Eli Roth too, at least as a director. He’s got his cannibal film The Green Inferno up first, and his Netflix exclusive TV show Hemlock Grove which is based on the book by Brian McGreevy (who is a co-writer on the Harker script), so these next few years will likely see Roth back on the horror map in a big way. If he wants Russell Crowe as Dracula, then I’m all for it. Lets just hope the Angry Aussie can slim down a bit before putting on the cape; chubby Dracula doesn’t work for me.