‘Renfield’ Director Chris McKay on Portraying Codependency and Toxicity with Emotion – and Accuracy

Tom Cruise’s newest "Mission: Impossible" movie was nearly an impossible mission itself, as the film's writer director Christopher McQuarrie told EW. The first roadblock came as the film was about to go into production in Italy in February 2020, just as the country was being hit hardest with the COVID-19 pandemic and the world was shutting down.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Nicholas Hoult recently made headlines for revealing he lost roles in “The Batman,” “Mission: Impossible 7” and “Top Gun: Maverick” all in a row, but that’s nothing compared to the handful of A-list projects Rachel McAdams consecutively turned down. As revealed in her new Bustle profile, McAdams turned down offers for “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Casino Royale,” “Mission: Impossible III,” “Iron Man” and “Get Smart” in the two-year period where she moved back to Canada following a rise in Hollywood with “Mean Girls,” “The Notebook” and more. “There’s certainly things like ‘I wish I’d done that,’” McAdams said. “[But] I step back and go, ‘That was the right person for that.’”

Dracula, where he’s been memorably portrayed by greats like Alexander Granach (in 1922’s silent Nosferatu), Dwight Frye (as a wide-eyed madman in 1931’s Dracula), and Tom Waits (chewing the scenery, and bugs, in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Renfield is perpetually overshadowed by the blood-sucking count.Universal’s new Renfield (★★☆☆☆), a big-budget spinoff of the Dracula story, set in present-day New Orleans, promises to give the character his overdue shine. Unfortunately, the film is an overcooked clash of genre and tepid grasps at modernization, whose greatest asset is — you guessed it — Dracula himself, played by a glammed-up, fang-gnashing Nicolas Cage.

The acting life isn’t always glamorous. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice for the part. Submitted for your approval is one Nicolas Cage, who has revealed a major regret captured on film while out promoting his current horror comedy, Renfield, which features Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as the title servant, R.M. Renfield.

J. Kim Murphy Mamma mia! “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is staying on top at the domestic box office. The Universal release added a commanding $22.6 million on Friday from 4,371 theaters. After achieving the biggest opening weekend of the year, “Mario Bros.” actually added 28 more locations in its sophomore outing. The Universal, Illumination and Nintendo co-production is now projecting an $80 million gross for the three-day frame, which would mark an impressive 45% drop from its $146 million opening weekend. e. On Friday, “Super Mario Bros.” crossed the $500 million mark globally. The film is now the highest-grossing release of 2023 so far and the biggest video game adaptation in history.

Five wide releases hit theaters this weekend, but Illumination and Universal’s Super Mario Bros. Movie will reign supreme with a second weekend, -60% of $58M. Already the plumbers have plunged a running stateside total through nine days of $260M, with $300M+ this weekend in sight.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor When director Chris McKay was making “Renfield” he turned to production designer Alec Hammond (“Donnie Darko”) to help deliver a fresh and updated take on the Dracula story, by taking “a big monster movie, rooting it in the classic movies, but subverting any expectations.” The film starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as his faithful sidekick Renfield, begins in 1931, in black-and-white. It was important, Hammond says, to set up Cage’s world in the historic context of harkening back to classic Dracula movies before jumping to the present day. The Charity Hospital in New Orleans, which had been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina, was the perfect location for Hammond to set Dracula and Renfield’s modern-day lair.

Stuck in a movie theater seat watching “Renfield” plod along, the answer is a resounding meh.As the Count from “Sesame Street” would say, “‘Renfield’ gets TWO stars! Ah, ah, ah.”Cage — whose career has become so goofy he recently played a parody version of himself who gets kidnapped by a Spanish drug lord — is as funny and self-aware as the evil old vampire. Crazy, it would seem, has become Cage’s new normal. But don’t come looking for a wacky sendup of the story in the vein of Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” It’s actually not even as hilarious as that director’s much-worse 1995 movie “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” and outside of a few basic details the film has little to do with Bram Stoker’s book.“Renfield,” directed by Chris McKay, has more in common with the (far better) “Zombieland” series, with high-body-count action sequences, quick-cut comedy and an unlikely, socially awkward hero. That would be Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), Count Dracula’s beleaguered “familiar,” who has been gifted an unnaturally long life in exchange for bringing the vamp fresh victims.

“Renfield,” an outrageous new take on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” told from the point of view of the count’s perpetually put-upon manservant (played here by Nicholas Hoult), the notion of being too over-the-top is considered and then hastily breezed by. In the opening sequence alone, an ancient curse is placed on the dark prince (played, with much scenery-chewing, by Nicolas Cage); when Dracula is freed he turns into a vaporous mist and explodes a priest from the inside. Then Dracula catches on fire and is turned into a crispy skeleton.The sequence is telling both for its bold tonal shifts and for the manic approach to action.

Few characters manage the passage of time quite like Dracula. From the character’s iconic beginnings as a Universal Studios monster to more recent attempts to craft a shared universe, Dracula adaptations often offer the clearest reflection of both the film industry and broader societal trends.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Expect “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to capture the high score at the box office… again. Despite the release of two new movies — Universal’s wacky Dracula horror-comedy “Renfield” and Sony’s R-rated demonic thriller “The Pope’s Exorcist” — Universal and Illumination’s animated adaptation of the popular Nintendo video game looks to loom large in its second weekend of release. After its towering $146 million debut, “Mario” is estimated to bring in $58 million to $66 million, a 55-60% decline from its opening. The PG blockbuster, which cost $100 million and brought back the all-important demographic of family audiences, has generated $204.6 million in North America and $375 million globally since opening last Wednesday. It’s already the fourth-highest grossing animated movie in pandemic times, following “Minions: The Rise of Gru” ($939 million), “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” ($480 million) and “Sing 2” ($408 million).

There have been so many variations and film versions of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula, from 1926’s Nosferatu to Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula to Francis Coppola’s well-regarded take with Gary Oldman to even comedic satires like Love at First Bite with George Hamilton taking on the role. Now in Universal’s latest effort to rescue its horror classics and make them new again, we have the perfectly cast Nicolas Cage as the Prince of Darkness. Even he has done an offshoot before, in 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss. However this time around the film is not centered on Dracula himself, but rather his beleaguered servant, henchman, whatever you choose to call him, Renfield, and it is another Nicholas, as in Hoult, who has the title role this time in Renfield. Cage’s part, though meaty, is actually supporting as the emphasis turns to the long-suffering assistant who was tasked with bringing his boss’ prey directly to him, consuming bugs of all sorts in order to get superhuman powers to conquer them, and basically taking the fall for anything this narcissistic vampire does not find to his liking.

In 2017 Universal debuted their ambitious plans for a series of reboots of their popular 1930s and 1940s horror films. Dubbed the Universal “Dark Universe,” it yielded only two features — 2017’s “The Mummy” with Tom Cruise and 2020’s “The Invisible Man” starring Elisabeth Moss — before being scrapped.

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix from the Joker sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux.Gaga, who plays Harley Quinn in the upcoming film, shared a picture of her in character as she announced filming on the sequel had come to an end.In an Instagram post on Thursday (April 6), Gaga wrote: “That’s a wrap. X, Harleen.”Director Todd Phillips also shared the photo alongside a new image of Phoenix in the lead role, with the caption: “That’s a wrap.

Chris McKay returns to theaters for the first time since 2017’s “The LEGO Batman Movie” with “Renfield” on April 14. And even though McKay directed “The Tomorrow War” in between, most movie fans still associate the director with his 2017 animated jaunt that features Will Arnett as the Caped Crusader.

Variety Thursday.“Nic wanted to emote and annunciate properly, so it was important the veneers were thin,” he said, explaining that the technology allowed him to make quick adjustments to the sharp dentures when needed.In order to put the 3-D printing to good use, Tinsley had to scan Cage’s teeth and then digitally sculpt them so they could fit in his mouth perfectly.The “National Treasure” actor also spent over three hours daily in the hair and makeup chair.“It was a full head of prosthetics, dentures, full body, torso, arms, hands and nails,” Tinsley noted. “Those take time.”Cage also stayed in character for the whole time they were shooting the flick, even when the camera wasn’t on him.

Want to know how the iconic Dracula teeth were made?

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor For Chris McKay’s “Renfield,” Nicolas Cage spent up to three hours each day transforming into the role of iconic vampire Dracula. But the biggest hurdle was developing Dracula’s razor-sharp teeth, makeup artist Christien Tinsely tells Variety. With the teeth design, it was important to consider how Dracula’s teeth would extract from the gums. Tinsley says McKay also wanted all of Dracula’s teeth to be sharp — not just the canines. Tinsley, whose credits include “The Passion of the Christ” and “Emancipation,” says he wanted to be able to make swift adjustments once Cage was on set, meaning he wouldn’t have much time to prep dentures and teeth casting using traditional denture methods. The eventual solution was to use 3D printing.

Joker: Folie a Deux” has now wrapped, and Todd Phillips is marking the occasion by offering fans another glimpse of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga as the Joker and Harley Quinn. “That’s a wrap,” Phillips wrote in an Instagram post with the two photos.

That’s a wrap for Joker: Folie à Deux!