Per Deadline, Leonardo DiCaprio is creating a biopic about Bela Lugosi for Common Photos via his Appian Means Productions banner. The long-lasting actor is greatest recognized for taking part in Dracula within the traditional 1931 horror movie.
The report states that it’s nonetheless early days on the mission, nevertheless it was first pitched to the studio two years in the past. The script comes from Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who have already got a familiarity with Lugosi because of writing Tim Burton’s Ed Wooden. That movie featured Martin Landau as Lugosi within the last years of his life (Landau received an Oscar for the position), however this new mission will concentrate on a a lot youthful Lugosi.
The brand new mission will comply with Lugosi as he immigrates from Hungary to the US and seize his “meteoric rise to change into one among cinema’s most enduring and recognizable figures… each because the star of Dracula on Broadway and the Hollywood adaptation, in addition to his precipitous fall after declining the position of Frankenstein, which went to his future rival Boris Karloff.“
The success of Dracula was each a blessing and a curse for Bela Lugosi. It made him a star, certain, nevertheless it additionally locked him right into a lifetime of horror-typecasting. Within the wake of Dracula’s smash hit, Common supplied him the main position in Frankenstein — simply not the one he wished. Lugosi had hoped to play Dr. Henry Frankenstein, however producer Carl Laemmle Jr. had different plans and wished him because the Monster. Lugosi wasn’t having it, and the half finally went to Boris Karloff, who turned the position right into a career-defining second and secured the enduring success that Lugosi himself had lengthy sought.
Lugosi acquired his shot at Frankenstein glory a number of years later with Son of Frankenstein, the final movie to function Karloff because the Monster. As Ygor, a deranged, broken-necked blacksmith hell-bent on utilizing the creature for his personal twisted functions, Lugosi flat-out stole the film. He got here again for The Ghost of Frankenstein and eventually stepped into the Monster’s huge boots himself in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, closing the loop on one among horror’s most legendary what-ifs. He would return to the position of Dracula for the second and last time on display in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
It appears like we’re nonetheless a methods off from the Bela Lugosi biopic, however who do you see enjoying the actor?
