Ever since Robert Eggers announced his arrival on the auteur filmmaking scene with 2015’s The Witch, he’s let it be known that he intended to tackle an adaptation of vampire classic Nosferatu. That project is finally ramping up, with a killer cast announced today.
Deadline reports that Eggers has tapped It’s Bill Skarsgård (after directing Bill’s brother Alexander in The Northman, Eggers seems to be collecting Skarsgårds like they’re Pokémon), who’ll play the undead Count Orlock, and Lily-Rose Depp (The Idol). Eggers is known for digging into deep folklore and cultural aesthetics and imbuing them with often supernatural panache — his resume also includes unforgettable whatsit The Lighthouse — and Nosferatu definitely fits into that. He’ll both direct and pen the script for the film that Deadline describes as “a new reimagining,” though the logline is familiar: “Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman (Depp) in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire (Skarsgard) who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.”
Eggers has said in the past that he hopes to reunite with Northman and Lighthouse star Willem Dafoe on Nosferatu, which makes sense since he previously played Max Schreck — Count Orlock in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic — in E. Elias Merhige’s underrated meta-horror Shadow of the Vampire. Though Skarsgård is now playing Orlock in Eggers’ film, there are plenty of other roles that Dafoe could fill in this timelessly creepy story. We’ll bring you more on Eggers’ return to the horror genre as and when we learn it.
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