Chris McKay, director of the upcoming “The Tomorrow War,” is in talks to direct and produce Universal Pictures’ “Renfield,” a monster movie centered around Dracula’s sidekick and based on an original story outline from Robert Kirkman.
Ryan Ridley (Fox’s “Ghosted,” Cartoon Network’s “Rick & Morty”) wrote the script. Plot details are being kept deep inside Dracula’s crypt (which is to say, they’re under wraps).
The film will be produced by Skybound Entertainment’s film team, including Kirkman, David Alpert, Bryan Furst and Sean Furst. McKay’s producing partner Samantha Nisenboim will be joining the project as executive producer.
Universal remains committed to creating compelling, filmmaker-driven projects based on characters from the studio’s vast monsters legacy. Instead of prescribing a mandated updating of these monster stories and making them all part of a larger scheme, the studio loosened these restrictions and open-sourced to filmmakers who were inspired to create their own unique stories; similar to what was done with the “Invisible Man” film inspired by Universal’s classic Monster character.
McKay co-directed “The Lego Movie” and directed “The Lego Batman Movie,” the latter of which earned more than $312 million at the worldwide box office. He most recently directed the live-action alien invasion movie “The Tomorrow War,” which stars Chris Pratt and was sold during the pandemic to Amazon for over $200 million. It will be released on July 2.
Chris McKay is represented by UTA, Rise Management and Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner Endlich & Gellman.
Deadline first reported the news.