Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Taken, The Professional), is taking a fresh approach to gothic storytelling with Dracula, a romantic reworking of Bram Stoker’s classic novel. The 15th-century-set film stars Caleb Landry Jones as the tragic prince, pursued by Christoph Waltz’s priest, and is supported by Zoë Bleu, Matilda de Angelis, Guillaume de Tonquedec, Ewens Abid, and Raphael Luce.
Besson says his interest in the project grew less from the Dracula myth itself than from a desire to collaborate again with Jones, following their work on Dogman. In exploring roles suited to the actor, he arrived at Stoker’s story and approached it through what he describes as a “totally romantic” lens—focusing on a side of the tale often overlooked: a man condemned to endure four centuries for the reincarnation of his lost wife.
Besson’s Dracula is less preoccupied with shocks and blood than with the inner toll of immortality. Here, the transformation into an eternal prince is fueled by grief, and the story unfolds as a study in gothic melancholy and romantic longing, eschewing conventional monster tropes in favor of a reflective, elegiac atmosphere.
In a conversation with CinemaChords ahead of the U.S. release on 6 February 2026, Besson discussed his decision to recast Dracula as a story of enduring love rather than sheer terror, to invent an origin that Stoker never imagined, and to explore why the timeless struggles of Stoker’s era – love, loss, and the weight of time – still resonate so strongly with today’s audiences.
