By Jennifer Asencio
| Revealed
You’d be forgiven in case you didn’t know there’s a brand new model of Dracula in theaters. The film was launched on February 6, 2026, to virtually no fanfare or media buzz. Critics have given it combined evaluations, incomes it a 52% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Directed by French inventive Luc Besson, who introduced us The Fifth Component and Valerian and the Metropolis of 1,000 Planetsthe film was first launched in France in July 2025, regardless of having an American forged that features Caleb Landry Jones of X-Males: First ClassChristoph Waltz from Inglorious Basterdsand newcomer Zoe Bleu, the most recent era of the well-known Arquette household. The six-month window between releases might have damage the film, as critics transfer on the velocity of the Web, not theater chains.
Making Dracula A Love Story Is No Longer Attention-grabbing
Nonetheless, one other mark towards the movie is true there in its authentic subtitle, on the posters: A Love Story. Following within the footsteps of the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola model and 2014’s Dracula Untoldthe film units up a past-life romance between the titular vampire and Mina Harker, the spouse of his British authorized consultant.
For some purpose, the temptation so as to add this romantic garnish to Bram Stoker’s novel is irresistible to fashionable Hollywood. It offers the monster a sympathetic motivation and a tragic backstory. Dracula is a scary monster, based mostly on a historic dictator recognized for his brutality. He’s not somebody to be pitied, and Bram Stoker didn’t have this ingredient in his ebook. However producers appear to assume that inserting this absurd origin story will promote tickets.
A Copycat Of Different Draculas?
Trailers for the film additionally look spinoff of prior variations, most particularly the 1992 model. Rely Dracula, in his youthful disguise, appears virtually precisely the identical as Gary Oldman’s rendition, proper right down to the highest hat. Elder Rely Dracula is presumably carrying the exact same wig from over three a long time in the past. A lot emphasis is positioned within the trailer on Dracula’s time because the struggle chief we all know as Vlad the Impaler, and an obvious disagreement with a Catholic cardinal dominates the presentation.
Christoph Waltz, who’s billed on Google as Van Helsing, is listed as enjoying “priest” on IMDB, suggesting liberties had been taken along with his character. Additional liberties had been undoubtedly taken with the story, with the insertion of a personality named Maria that appears to switch the notorious bug-eating Renfield. Reasonably than having a magnetic attract generated by the facility of his evil, Dracula’s enchantment is in a fragrance he and his minions produce. The trailer claims it “reimagines” Stoker’s novel, however it appears to only borrow just a few character names to lend it legitimacy.
Vampire Flop Or French Success?
As of this writing, Luc Besson’s Dracula has taken in $39 million on the field workplace towards a funds of $52 million. I suppose they saved quite a bit on promoting, which ought to assist cushion the blow of not recouping their funding.
Regardless of hints of its monetary failure, it stays one of many highest-grossing French movies of current years. Audiences who see it are having fun with it (it has an 81% viewers approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), however apparently, it’s not inspiring moviegoers to flock to the theaters.
So yeah, there’s a brand new model of Dracula out, however its reception is so muted that extra individuals find out about that Day by day Wire King Arthur present critics are desperately attempting to disregard. If you wish to see Dracula on the large display screen, don’t blink, since you would possibly miss it totally.