First up, in case you were not already aware, giallo master Dario Argento has been cooking up a purportedly very faithful 3D adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to be titled, what else, Dracula 3D. He announced the film last year at Cannes, with an eye towards shooting in Italy this past January. That did not happen, but the project is not dead. In fact, Twitch is reporting that Argento’s camp just made an interesting casting announcement…

Rutger Hauer with be playing Prof. Abraham Van Helsing.

Hauer has had a weird and bumpy career. Despite having several iconic roles in the 80’s after jumping off the boat from the Netherlands, these roles were unfortunately all in films destined to be cult or genre hits. This combined with Hauer’s reputation for being problematic (boy have I heard some stories about this guy), has generally kept him at the fringe of cinema. But the man has never stopped making movies, and as those film fans who grew up during his heyday have finally risen to the heights of studio filmmakers, Hauer has found him self with a couple high profile gigs lately (Sin City, Batman Begins). And of course, Hauer looks to have created himself another iconic genre film role in Hobo With a Shotgun.

The idea of Hauer taking on Van Helsing in a giallo Dracula sounds amazing. But I have a hard time being optimistic about the project considering that I don’t think Dario Argento has made a good movie in over twenty years. If someone can get a time machine, and swipe early-80’s Argento for this film – then color me pumped. I would actually be excited about the 3D if that Argento were behind the camera.