Luke Evans Keeps Doing Things for Universal; But Now As DRACULA

Luke Evans really seems to be the new Sam Worthington, except talented.
Comes out of nowhere, starts popping up in all these big action movies, and now he's reached the big leagues: The star of a Dracula movie AND the bad guy in one of those Fast and Furious things.

 The Hollywood Reporter  reported earlier that Welsh actor Luke Evans (The Three Musketeers, The Raven, Fast & Furious 6) will take the lead role as Dracula in Universal's reboot of the classic movie monster in Dracula. 

The script tells of a young prince who, when the lives of his wife and child are put in danger by a bloodthirsty sultan, risks his soul to save them, and in the process becomes the first vampire.

Dracula is being directed by first-timer Gary Shore, and produced by Oscar-nominated Michael De Luca (The Social Network, Fright Night, Blade II) based on a script from Matt Sazama and Burk Sharples.

De Luca spoke with Collider years ago when the film was to be made with Evan's fellow Clash of the Titans star Sam Worthington:

These writers came up with the ingenious-what I think is ingenious-approach combining historical Dracula with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So it chronicles the efforts of a young prince, Vlad of Transylvania trying to keep the Ottoman empire and the Turks of the time from using his small country as a stepping stone to invade Europe.

De Luca went on to say:

In a moment of desperation he ascends [this mysterious] mountain to see if there’s any truth to any kind of power that he could use to keep the [Turkish] army out. And he finds something that gets him to where we have come to know him as Dracula and uses that power source to kind of fight the Turks after he’s changed.

Dracula is aimed to start shooting later this year.