Summit's Vampire Movie Vlad Features No Vampires, Isn't A Dracula Remake

This is almost refreshing. Just a few days ago we told you that Summit was working on an "action-heavy Dracula remake, entitled Vlad, with a script by actor Charlie Hunnam" and direction by music video director Anthony Mandler. Turns out that the project isn't quite what anyone expected. Yes, it's based on the life of Vlad the Impaler, and yes, it's intended to be a big, sweeping film with a lot of action. ('In the style of 300' keeps being used as a reference.)

But the film is about Vlad the man, rather than an adaptation of Dracula, and won't touch on vampirism at all.

So says writer, Undeclared and Sons of Anarchy's Charlie Hunnam, to EW, as he describes his take.

As the script stands now, we don't touch on vampirism. That was my one non-negotiable area when we were developing it, and thankfully, nobody suggested that we should delve into it at the end. But you can clearly see the things that Bram Stoker took.... Vlad was such a brutal man, and the trick is to make him sympathetic.

He says he envisions the film as "more Braveheart than 300," and getting into the real history of Vlad's family before showing the guy as a champion of Romania and opposer of the incursion of the Ottoman Empire. There's a war between Vlad and the Empire that is a brother against brother scenario, and a Christian vs Muslim thing. At least for now. "That's how it is now. This isn't the shooting draft we have. Who knows, a lot of this might end up getting trimmed down." Reading the full interview, Hunnam certainly sounds like a guy who not only did his research, but poured most of it into the script. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that much of the history is cut, but hopefully Summit won't totally eviscerate it.

Will Hunnam play Vlad?

Listen, it would be a dream come true for me to play this role. But I've had my heart-broken so many times that I'm not kidding myself that there's any real potential. There's a reality to making this type of film and how much it costs, and I'm just not a big enough name to justify that type of budget right now.